Smart Speaker Device with Cognitive Sound Analysis and Response

ABSTRACT

Smart speaker mechanisms are provided for processing audio sample data captured by the audio capture device is provided. The mechanisms capture one or more audio samples from a monitored environment and store the captured one or more audio samples in the audio sample buffer. The one or more captured audio samples are analyzed to determine whether the one or more captured audio samples represent a potential wake sound for initiating a responsive action by the smart speaker device. The potential wake sound is a variable sound determined to not be a normal ambient sound of the monitored environment. In response to determining that the one or more captured audio samples represent a potential wake sound for initiating a responsive action by the smart speaker device, the mechanisms initiate performance of the responsive action by the smart speaker device.

BACKGROUND

The present application relates generally to an improved data processingapparatus and method and more specifically to mechanisms for providing asmart speaker device with cognitive sound analysis and response.

Smart speaker technology has increased in capabilities and popularityover recent years. A smart speaker is a type of wireless speaker andsmart device that utilizes Wi-Fi, Bluetooth or other communicationstandards, and provides features beyond audio playback. This can includefeatures such as compatibility across a number of services andplatforms, peer-to-peer connection through mesh networking, intelligentpersonal assistants, and the like. Each can have its own designatedinterface and features in-house, usually launched or controlled via anapplication or home automation software. Examples of smart speakersinclude Amazon Echo™, Google Home™, Apple Siri™ enable devices,Microsoft Cortana™ enabled devices, and the like.

SUMMARY

This Summary is provided to introduce a selection of concepts in asimplified form that are further described herein in the DetailedDescription. This Summary is not intended to identify key factors oressential features of the claimed subject matter, nor is it intended tobe used to limit the scope of the claimed subject matter.

In one illustrative embodiment, a method, in a smart speaker devicecomprising an audio capture device and an audio sample buffer, forprocessing audio sample data captured by the audio capture device isprovided. The method comprises capturing, by the audio capture device,one or more audio samples from a monitored environment and storing, bythe smart speaker device, the captured one or more audio samples in theaudio sample buffer. The audio sample buffer stores an amount ofcaptured audio samples corresponding to a specified time window fordetecting events occurring within the monitored environment. The methodfurther comprises analyzing, by smart speaker device logic of the smartspeaker device, the one or more captured audio samples to determinewhether the one or more captured audio samples represent a potentialwake sound for initiating a responsive action by the smart speakerdevice, wherein the potential wake sound is a variable sound determinedto not be a normal ambient sound of the monitored environment. Moreover,the method comprises, in response to determining that the one or morecaptured audio samples represent a potential wake sound for initiating aresponsive action by the smart speaker device, initiating performance ofthe responsive action by the smart speaker device.

In other illustrative embodiments, a computer program product comprisinga computer useable or readable medium having a computer readable programis provided. The computer readable program, when executed on a computingdevice, causes the computing device to perform various ones of, andcombinations of, the operations outlined above with regard to the methodillustrative embodiment.

In yet another illustrative embodiment, a system/apparatus is provided.The system/apparatus may comprise one or more processors and a memorycoupled to the one or more processors. The memory may compriseinstructions which, when executed by the one or more processors, causethe one or more processors to perform various ones of, and combinationsof, the operations outlined above with regard to the method illustrativeembodiment.

These and other features and advantages of the present invention will bedescribed in, or will become apparent to those of ordinary skill in theart in view of, the following detailed description of the exampleembodiments of the present invention.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE SEVERAL VIEWS OF THE DRAWINGS

The invention, as well as a preferred mode of use and further objectivesand advantages thereof, will best be understood by reference to thefollowing detailed description of illustrative embodiments when read inconjunction with the accompanying drawings, wherein:

FIG. 1 depicts a schematic diagram of one illustrative embodiment of asmart speaker system in accordance with one illustrative embodiment;

FIG. 2 is an example block diagram of a data processing system in whichaspects of the illustrative embodiments may be implemented;

FIG. 3 is an example diagram illustrating the interaction and/orimplementation of the smart speaker system in various stages of acognitive system request processing pipeline in accordance with oneillustrative embodiment;

FIG. 4 is a flowchart outlining an example overall operation of a smartspeaker system for processing an audio sample captured by a smartspeaker device in accordance with one illustrative embodiment;

FIG. 5 is a flowchart outlining an example operation for identifying asound in a captured audio sample in accordance with one illustrativeembodiment; and

FIG. 6 is a flowchart outlining an example operation for identifying theoccurrence of an event in a monitored environment and initiating aresponsive action in accordance with one illustrative embodiment.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

The illustrative embodiments comprise mechanisms for providing a smartspeaker system with cognitive sound analysis and response. As mentionedabove, smart speaker technology has recently enjoyed increase popularitywith the release of various smart speaker devices and services that makehome automation and audio entertainment more accessible and userfriendly. According to the current trends, these smart speaker deviceswill play more dominant roles in smart homes in the future. A definingcharacteristic of these known smart speaker devices is the need to havea fixed predefined wake word or phrase that the smart speaker mustrecognize in order to determine that it is to perform speech recognitionon the spoken words of the user following the wake word or phrase.Examples of such fixed wake words or phrases include, for example, “Hey,Siri . . . ” for the Apple Siri™ devices, “Cortana . . . ” for theMicrosoft Cortana devices, or “Alexa . . . ” for the Amazon Echo™devices. Known smart speakers do not autonomously recognize differenttypes of sounds as wake sounds and do not provide any functionality foranalyzing various sounds to categorize them, determine patterns ofsounds, cognitively analyze such patterns to identify events occurringwithin a monitored environment, and automatically cognitively determineappropriate feedback or response actions to be performed in response toidentification of such events.

The present invention provides a smart speaker system that is capable ofanalyzing a variable wake sound which activates the smart speakersystem's functionality for cognitively, and automatically, analyzing thesound, identifying or classifying the sound as a particular type ofsound originating from a particular type of sound source, analyzing thepattern of sounds occurring within a designated time window of eachother to identify a potential event, and determining an appropriateresponsive action to perform in response to the identification of thepotential event. The analysis of the pattern of sounds may take intoaccount a plurality of different information obtained from analysis ofthe sounds and patterns of sounds themselves, as well as other knowledgedatabases and information sources that may be generalized for anymonitored environment, specific to the particular environment beingmonitored by the specific smart speaker device and system, or evenspecific to the particular user or operator of the smart speaker device.

For example, the smart speaker system may recognize any sound that issignificantly different from ambient sounds learned to be present atparticular times of day for the particular monitored environment inwhich the smart speaker system's audio receivers are present. Thesesounds may take many different forms depending on the particularimplementation and may include, for example, sounds of a dog barking,loud noises, coughs, calls for help, fire alarms, carbon monoxidealarms, machine making an improper noise (e.g., due to a defect,incident, or worn part), the speaking of a code/token such as a primenumber or emergency word/phrase (e.g., as a user security signal or thelike), whistling, the sound of someone falling to the floor, pest noises(e.g., mice, bees) in a wall of the environment, a car accident, baby orchild crying, glass breaking, doorbells, or any other distinguishablesound that may indicate something occurring within the monitoredenvironment, other than a normal ambient sound situation, that is ofimportance for performing a responsive action. A registry or database ofsound patterns, sound features, or the like, and their correspondingsound types and source types, also referred to herein as a sound samplearchive, may be provided for use in classifying detected sounds into acorresponding type of sound from a particular type of sound source. Inaddition, a registry of sound patterns, which may include correlationsof sounds, sequences of sounds, or other patterns of identified soundsindicative of events occurring within a monitored environment may alsobe provided for use in determining whether a corresponding event is orhas occurred within the monitored environment.

The illustrative embodiments may comprise one or more microphones orother audio capture devices, either present in a single smart speakerdevice, multiple smart speaker devices, or other distributed array ofaudio capture devices, within or associated with a monitoredenvironment. In some embodiments, the audio capture devices may be partof a smart speaker device that is mobile within a monitored environment,such as part of a robotic chassis whose movement is either automaticallyguided through the monitored environment or controlled remotely by ahuman operator. The audio capture devices operate to capture audio data,e.g., data representing the waveform of sound captured from a monitoredenvironment. The audio data may then be locally and/or remotely storedand analyzed to identify the sounds and source of the sounds present inthe audio data. For example, the analysis of the audio data may comprisefirst determining, such as at a local level, whether the captured audiodata represents one or more sounds that may be significant foradditional analysis, i.e. sounds that are distinct from learned ambientsounds of the monitored environment and which pass an initial set ofcriteria, which may be user configurable, indicating a need for furtheranalysis.

Thereafter, a more cognitive and detailed analysis of audio datacomprising sounds determined to be significant may be performed eitherlocally or remotely, e.g., at a remote server or other computing device.For example, such analysis may comprise performing pattern analysis,feature extraction (e.g., amplitude, frequency, duration, etc.),comparisons to known sounds or sound patterns, and the like. Thepatterns and/or features may be used as a basis for comparing the audiodata, i.e. the sound sample, with a stored archive of sound samples,i.e. a sound sample archive, to thereby indicate a nature or type of thesounds in the audio data and/or the nature or type of the sound sourcesgenerating the sounds in the audio data. Pattern analysis may be appliedto compare the sound sample patterns to determine a degree of matchingof the captured sound sample to archived sound samples. Similarly,feature comparisons may be used to determine a degree of matchingbetween features of the captured sound samples with archived soundsamples. In this way, the identification or classification of a capturedsound sample may be generated with regard to archived sound samples thathave a highest degree of matching or confidence in the matching.

In some implementations, the audio capture device(s) are able totriangulate or otherwise identify the location within the monitoredenvironment from which the sound is sampled and may track movement ofsound sources within the monitored environment, e.g., tracking amplitudeand timing of received audio data from one or more audio capture devicesindicating movement towards or away from the respective audio capturedevices. Such location and/or movement information may be used to assistwith cognitive analysis of the audio data to identify the classificationor identification of the sound. Such location and/or movement detectionmay be based on sound amplitudes received at various audio capturedevices positioned in different positions of the monitored environment,e.g., the same sound received at different audio capture devices withdifferent amplitudes indicates the source being closer to audio capturedevices where the amplitude is relatively greater and further away fromaudio capture devices with the amplitude is relatively lower.

In some illustrative embodiments, sentiment analysis may be performed oncaptured audio data to determine moods, intents, or the like, of thesources of the audio data, i.e the captured sounds from the monitoredenvironment. For example, natural language content of the audio data, asmay be determined using a speech to text conversion mechanism or thelike, may be analyzed to identify particular terms and phrasesindicative of moods, intents, and the like. Moreover, various audiocharacteristics, or features, may be evaluated for sentiment such asrising pitch, sharp increases in amplitude of the captured audio, audiodata patterns indicative of crying, moaning, screaming, and the like,etc. This sentiment analysis may be combined with other types ofanalysis, such as identification of sound type, sound source type,location, and the like, in a joint analysis directed to identifyingevents occurring within or in association with a monitored environment,as described hereafter.

Various types of analysis may be performed on the captured audio data toperform sound identification in a composite sound signal. For example,impulsive sound components in a composite sound signal may be separatedusing wavelet analysis and sorting of wavelet coefficient sets accordingto statistical parameters of each respective coefficient set, such as isgenerally known in the art. Each entire coefficient set is eitherincluded or excluded from each respective separated component based onthe statistical parameters. Once the impulsive sound component isisolated, it may be compared to reference sound information, e.g.,stored or archived sound patterns, in order to classify the soundaccording to its potential causes.

In some embodiments, a history of captured audio data, and the soundidentification results associated with the captured audio data, e.g.,the identification of the type of sound and the type of sound source ofthe sound, may be stored for use in cognitively evaluating the patternof different identified sounds to determine whether an event isoccurring within the monitored environment that would trigger aresponsive action, or reaction, by the smart speaker system, e.g., theoutputting of an audible message, the outputting of an audible requestor question to a user and listening, via the smart speaker device, foran audible response from a user which is then processed, the triggeringof a display of information such as on a display associated with thesmart speaker device, the triggering of a visual indicator on the smartspeaker device, such as a light on the smart speaker device, theinitiating of a communication (automated telephone call, electronic mailmessage, instant text message, or the like) to another device via awired or wireless connection, or the like. The history may be stored ina local buffer memory of the smart speaker device, stored remotely in aremote storage device of a computing system in association with anidentifier of the smart speaker device, or the like. The historypreferably is configured to store captured audio data and thecorresponding identification of sounds present in the audio data asdetermined from the smart speaker system, identified sound source types,and any other suitable features of the captured sounds, for apredetermined time window, or period of time, consistent with an amountof time required to identify events occurring within or in associationwith the monitored environment. For example, the time window may be setto store audio data captured over a 5, 10, or 15 minute time duration,or any other desirable amount of time, such that patterns andcorrelations of sounds present in the audio data captured during thetime window may be made to identify events occurring within orassociated with the monitored environment.

In the above example embodiment, the time window is relatively short andassociated with a time period determined to be sufficient to identifyevents occurring within or associated with the monitored environment.However, in some illustrative embodiments, the history may be maintainedin the smart speaker system in a more permanent fashion for use in laterplayback operations. For example, the buffered audio data andcorresponding sound identifications may be moved from the buffer memoryto a more permanent memory, e.g., a hard disk storage system, remotestorage system, or the like, for later retrieval and playback whendesired. Moreover, such a stored history may be made accessible to auser via another remotely located computing device, e.g., a user may benotified, via an electronic communication (e.g., email, instant message,or the like) of an event occurring and be given a link or otherselectable mechanism by which to access the stored audio data and soundidentification information from the permanent storage.

The cognitive analysis of the identified sound(s) in the captured audiodata over the specified time window may involve utilizing stored orlearned knowledge about events and the types of sounds associated withsuch events. This stored or learned knowledge may be provided in theform of machine executable rules that are stored in the smart speakersystem, either in the local smart speaker device, in a remotely locatedcomputing system (e.g., a cloud computing system), or a combination ofboth local and remotely located devices/systems. The rules may be storedas template data structures, where each template data structure mayrepresent a different type of event and may comprise one or more rules.

In determining whether an event is occurring within or in associationwith the monitored environment, a degree of matching of the sounds foundin the captured audio data to the criteria specified in theserules/templates may be calculated to determine a risk or danger level ofthe perceived event associated with the monitored environment. Forexample, the risk or danger level may be a combination of a basic ordefault risk or danger level associated with the event defined by therule/template, weighted by the degree of matching of the sounds, orpatterns of sounds, identified in the captured audio for the specifiedtime window. For example, a template may have one or more rulesspecifying criteria for an event of a “break-in” at the monitoredenvironment. The rules may specify the sounds as including glassbreakage, security alarm sounds, crunching glass, sounds of footsteps ofunknown frequency or duration, shuffling of contents of a room, etc.Based on how many of these sounds are identified in the captured audiodata during the specified time window, a degree of matching may becalculated and used to weight the basic or default risk/danger level ofthe event, e.g., the default risk/danger level may be considered high,but if the number of matching sounds is low, then the risk/danger levelmay be reduced accordingly. Alternatively, the degree of matching maysimply be used as a measure of confidence that the event is actuallyoccurring or has occurred in association with the monitored environmentand if the confidence is sufficiently high, e.g., equal to or greaterthan a predetermined threshold, which may be user configurable, then theevent specified in the rules/template is considered to be a match andthe corresponding risk/danger level for that event is utilized.

Based on the type of event, source of the sounds identified in thecaptured audio data, and the risk/danger level associated with theevent, a corresponding responsive action may be taken by the smartspeaker system. The responsive actions may take many different formsdepending on the particular type of event. However, these responsiveactions may generally be categorized into local audible/visualmessage/request output actions, remote communication actions, and localdevice control actions. Of course, a combination of such actions mayalso be utilized. Examples of local audible/visual message/requestoutput actions include, but are not limited to, outputting a naturallanguage message in an audible format indicating the nature of adetected event, outputting a natural language request in an audibleformat indicating a nature of the detected event and requestinginstructions from a user (followed by appropriate action based on theuser response), illuminating or otherwise controlling the turning on/offof a visual indicator as well as controlling characteristics of thevisual indicator, e.g., color, textual message displayed, blinking, rateof blinking, or other visual characteristics, and the like. Examples ofremote communication actions include, but are not limited to, initiatingan automated telephone call to a user's registered telephone number,initiating a call to a security company managing the security of themonitored environment, initiating a call to emergency servicespersonnel, sending an electronic mail message to a user associated withthe smart speaker system indicating the detected event with/withoutattachment of audio data for playback, sending an instant message to aregistered device associated with a user, or the like. Examples of localdevice control actions include, but are not limited to, turning on/offlights, activating/deactivating security alarms, locking/unlockingdoors, turning on/off video feeds from security video cameras,controlling the viewing position of such security video cameras, e.g.,by controlling a motor in the video camera to pan the camera to focus ona location where the smart speaker system determines the source of adetected sound may be present, playing music, sounding alarms, or otheraudio, or the like.

Thus, based on the type of event, source of the sounds identified in thecaptured audio data, and the risk/danger level associated with theevent, one or more corresponding responsive actions are identified by acognitive system of the smart speaker system and a runtime actioncomposer component composes the corresponding responsive actions andcauses the responsive actions to be performed. This may involveaccessing registered contact information for the user, such as may bestored in configuration information or a user profile data structure, toobtain information for sending communications and what thosecommunications should contain. This may further involve accessing otherknowledge bases located remotely to obtain information needed toformulate the content and/or control information for composing and/ordirecting the responsive actions, e.g., unique identifiers of devices tobe controlled, identifiers of on-line retailers from whichproducts/services may be obtained, and the like.

The operation of the smart speaker system is user configurable in manydifferent ways so that the user can identify the types of events forwhich the smart speaker is to monitor the environment, the level ofconfidence and/or danger/risk level required for different types ofresponsive actions to be performed, the types of responsive actions tobe performed in response to particular types of events, schedules ofwhen certain types of events are to be monitored for, schedules of whenthe smart speaker system is to disable monitoring, such as for privacyor security reasons, and the like. Moreover, the smart speaker systemmay learn, over time, normal ambient sound patterns for the monitoredenvironment such that these normal ambient sound patterns may befiltered from other captured sound data when evaluating whether or notsignificant sounds are present in captured audio data requiring furtheranalysis.

Thus, the present invention provides a cognitive smart speaker deviceand smart speaker system that operates based on a variable wake sound.The mechanisms of the illustrative embodiments identify the type of thesounds captured in the monitored environment and the types of thesources of the sounds, through cognitive analysis of patterns andfeatures of the captured sounds in comparison to archived sound sampleinformation. Moreover, the mechanisms of the illustrative embodimentsmay utilize joint analysis when performing such cognitive analysis,using a plurality of different sound attributes and information obtainedfrom other knowledge databases and information sources, to identify thetype of sounds captured and the types of sources of such sounds.Furthermore, the mechanisms of the illustrative embodiments may evaluatepatterns of identified sounds to identify events occurring within orassociated with a monitored environment and may take appropriateresponsive action in response to identifying an event.

Before beginning the discussion of the various aspects of theillustrative embodiments in more detail, it should first be appreciatedthat throughout this description the term “mechanism” will be used torefer to elements of the present invention that perform variousoperations, functions, and the like. A “mechanism,” as the term is usedherein, may be an implementation of the functions or aspects of theillustrative embodiments in the form of an apparatus, a procedure, or acomputer program product. In the case of a procedure, the procedure isimplemented by one or more devices, apparatus, computers, dataprocessing systems, or the like. In the case of a computer programproduct, the logic represented by computer code or instructions embodiedin or on the computer program product is executed by one or morehardware devices in order to implement the functionality or perform theoperations associated with the specific “mechanism.” Thus, themechanisms described herein may be implemented as specialized hardware,software executing on general purpose hardware, software instructionsstored on a medium such that the instructions are readily executable byspecialized or general purpose hardware, a procedure or method forexecuting the functions, or a combination of any of the above.

The present description and claims may make use of the terms “a”, “atleast one of”, and “one or more of” with regard to particular featuresand elements of the illustrative embodiments. It should be appreciatedthat these terms and phrases are intended to state that there is atleast one of the particular feature or element present in the particularillustrative embodiment, but that more than one can also be present.That is, these terms/phrases are not intended to limit the descriptionor claims to a single feature/element being present or require that aplurality of such features/elements be present. To the contrary, theseterms/phrases only require at least a single feature/element with thepossibility of a plurality of such features/elements being within thescope of the description and claims.

Moreover, it should be appreciated that the use of the term “engine,” ifused herein with regard to describing embodiments and features of theinvention, is not intended to be limiting of any particularimplementation for accomplishing and/or performing the actions, steps,processes, etc., attributable to and/or performed by the engine. Anengine may be, but is not limited to, software, hardware and/or firmwareor any combination thereof that performs the specified functionsincluding, but not limited to, any use of a general and/or specializedprocessor in combination with appropriate software loaded or stored in amachine readable memory and executed by the processor. Further, any nameassociated with a particular engine is, unless otherwise specified, forpurposes of convenience of reference and not intended to be limiting toa specific implementation. Additionally, any functionality attributed toan engine may be equally performed by multiple engines, incorporatedinto and/or combined with the functionality of another engine of thesame or different type, or distributed across one or more engines ofvarious configurations.

In addition, it should be appreciated that the following descriptionuses a plurality of various examples for various elements of theillustrative embodiments to further illustrate example implementationsof the illustrative embodiments and to aid in the understanding of themechanisms of the illustrative embodiments. These examples intended tobe non-limiting and are not exhaustive of the various possibilities forimplementing the mechanisms of the illustrative embodiments. It will beapparent to those of ordinary skill in the art in view of the presentdescription that there are many other alternative implementations forthese various elements that may be utilized in addition to, or inreplacement of, the examples provided herein without departing from thespirit and scope of the present invention.

The present invention may be a system, a method, and/or a computerprogram product. The computer program product may include a computerreadable storage medium (or media) having computer readable programinstructions thereon for causing a processor to carry out aspects of thepresent invention.

The computer readable storage medium can be a tangible device that canretain and store instructions for use by an instruction executiondevice. The computer readable storage medium may be, for example, but isnot limited to, an electronic storage device, a magnetic storage device,an optical storage device, an electromagnetic storage device, asemiconductor storage device, or any suitable combination of theforegoing. A non-exhaustive list of more specific examples of thecomputer readable storage medium includes the following: a portablecomputer diskette, a hard disk, a random access memory (RAM), aread-only memory (ROM), an erasable programmable read-only memory (EPROMor Flash memory), a static random access memory (SRAM), a portablecompact disc read-only memory (CD-ROM), a digital versatile disk (DVD),a memory stick, a floppy disk, a mechanically encoded device such aspunch-cards or raised structures in a groove having instructionsrecorded thereon, and any suitable combination of the foregoing. Acomputer readable storage medium, as used herein, is not to be construedas being transitory signals per se, such as radio waves or other freelypropagating electromagnetic waves, electromagnetic waves propagatingthrough a waveguide or other transmission media (e.g., light pulsespassing through a fiber-optic cable), or electrical signals transmittedthrough a wire.

Computer readable program instructions described herein can bedownloaded to respective computing/processing devices from a computerreadable storage medium or to an external computer or external storagedevice via a network, for example, the Internet, a local area network, awide area network and/or a wireless network. The network may comprisecopper transmission cables, optical transmission fibers, wirelesstransmission, routers, firewalls, switches, gateway computers and/oredge servers. A network adapter card or network interface in eachcomputing/processing device receives computer readable programinstructions from the network and forwards the computer readable programinstructions for storage in a computer readable storage medium withinthe respective computing/processing device.

Computer readable program instructions for carrying out operations ofthe present invention may be assembler instructions,instruction-set-architecture (ISA) instructions, machine instructions,machine dependent instructions, microcode, firmware instructions,state-setting data, or either source code or object code written in anycombination of one or more programming languages, including an objectoriented programming language such as Java, Smalltalk, C++ or the like,and conventional procedural programming languages, such as the “C”programming language or similar programming languages. The computerreadable program instructions may execute entirely on the user'scomputer, partly on the user's computer, as a stand-alone softwarepackage, partly on the user's computer and partly on a remote computeror entirely on the remote computer or server. In the latter scenario,the remote computer may be connected to the user's computer through anytype of network, including a local area network (LAN) or a wide areanetwork (WAN), or the connection may be made to an external computer(for example, through the Internet using an Internet Service Provider).In some embodiments, electronic circuitry including, for example,programmable logic circuitry, field-programmable gate arrays (FPGA), orprogrammable logic arrays (PLA) may execute the computer readableprogram instructions by utilizing state information of the computerreadable program instructions to personalize the electronic circuitry,in order to perform aspects of the present invention.

Aspects of the present invention are described herein with reference toflowchart illustrations and/or block diagrams of methods, apparatus(systems), and computer program products according to embodiments of theinvention. It will be understood that each block of the flowchartillustrations and/or block diagrams, and combinations of blocks in theflowchart illustrations and/or block diagrams, can be implemented bycomputer readable program instructions.

These computer readable program instructions may be provided to aprocessor of a general purpose computer, special purpose computer, orother programmable data processing apparatus to produce a machine, suchthat the instructions, which execute via the processor of the computeror other programmable data processing apparatus, create means forimplementing the functions/acts specified in the flowchart and/or blockdiagram block or blocks. These computer readable program instructionsmay also be stored in a computer readable storage medium that can directa computer, a programmable data processing apparatus, and/or otherdevices to function in a particular manner, such that the computerreadable storage medium having instructions stored therein comprises anarticle of manufacture including instructions which implement aspects ofthe function/act specified in the flowchart and/or block diagram blockor blocks.

The computer readable program instructions may also be loaded onto acomputer, other programmable data processing apparatus, or other deviceto cause a series of operational steps to be performed on the computer,other programmable apparatus or other device to produce a computerimplemented process, such that the instructions which execute on thecomputer, other programmable apparatus, or other device implement thefunctions/acts specified in the flowchart and/or block diagram block orblocks.

The flowchart and block diagrams in the Figures illustrate thearchitecture, functionality, and operation of possible implementationsof systems, methods, and computer program products according to variousembodiments of the present invention. In this regard, each block in theflowchart or block diagrams may represent a module, segment, or portionof instructions, which comprises one or more executable instructions forimplementing the specified logical function(s). In some alternativeimplementations, the functions noted in the block may occur out of theorder noted in the figures. For example, two blocks shown in successionmay, in fact, be executed substantially concurrently, or the blocks maysometimes be executed in the reverse order, depending upon thefunctionality involved. It will also be noted that each block of theblock diagrams and/or flowchart illustration, and combinations of blocksin the block diagrams and/or flowchart illustration, can be implementedby special purpose hardware-based systems that perform the specifiedfunctions or acts or carry out combinations of special purpose hardwareand computer instructions.

As noted above, the present invention provides a smart speaker systemthat is capable of analyzing a variable wake sound which activates thesmart speaker system's functionality for cognitively, and automatically,analyzing the sound, identifying or classifying the sound as aparticular type of sound originating from a particular type of soundsource, analyzing the pattern of sounds occurring within a designatedtime window of each other to identify a potential event, and determiningan appropriate responsive action to perform in response to theidentification of the potential event. The smart speaker system may becompletely provided within a stand alone smart speaker device or may bedistributed over multiple devices that may communicate via one or moredata networks. For example, a smart speaker device may be provided thatincludes software logic for implementing the various components of asmart speaker system in accordance with the illustrative embodiments.Such a stand-alone smart speaker system may access remotely located dataprocessing systems for information retrieval purposes, but otherwise thefunctionality of the illustrative embodiments may be provided within thestand alone smart speaker device. In other illustrative embodiments, thesmart speaker system may comprise a smart speaker device that performs afirst subset of the functionality described herein with regard tovarious ones of the illustrative embodiments, while other subsets of thefunctionality may be provided by one or more other data processingsystems, cloud based systems, or the like.

The illustrative embodiments may be utilized in many different types ofdata processing environments. In order to provide a context for thedescription of the specific elements and functionality of theillustrative embodiments, FIGS. 1-3 are provided hereafter as exampleenvironments in which aspects of the illustrative embodiments may beimplemented. It should be appreciated that FIGS. 1-3 are only examplesand are not intended to assert or imply any limitation with regard tothe environments in which aspects or embodiments of the presentinvention may be implemented. Many modifications to the depictedenvironments may be made without departing from the spirit and scope ofthe present invention.

FIGS. 1-3 are directed to describing various aspects of an example smartspeaker system comprising logic for performing variable wake soundactivation and cognitive sound recognition, event detection, andresponsive action performance in accordance with one illustrativeembodiment. The example shown in FIGS. 1-3 assumes a distributed dataprocessing system environment for purposes of illustration. Moreover,the example shown in FIGS. 1-3 utilizes a cognitive system forperforming variable wake sound recognition, event identification, andresponsive action performance. The cognitive system implements a requestprocessing pipeline, request processing methodology, and requestprocessing computer program product with which the mechanisms of theillustrative embodiments may be implemented. These requests may beprovided as structure or unstructured data, request messages, naturallanguage questions, or any other suitable format for requesting anoperation to be performed by the cognitive system. For example, therequest may be simply the detection of audio data by audio capturedevice(s) associated with a smart speaker device and the request beingthe input data provided for sound pattern/feature analysis andrecognition, event identification, and responsive action performance. Inother cases, the request may be a spoken question made by a user andcaptured by an audio capture device of the smart speaker system.

The request processing pipeline may have an associated corpus or corporathat is ingested by the cognitive system to perform cognitive operationson input requests and/or data. The corpus or corpora may compriseinformation from a variety of different sources which may be generalizedfor a plurality of different types of monitored environments, or may bespecific to the particular monitored environment in which the smartspeaker system is present, or specific to the particular user associatedwith the smart speaker system. For example, the corpus may comprisegeneral sound pattern, sound features, and corresponding sound types andtypes of sound sources for various types of general sounds that may befound in a number of different environments, e.g., sounds of a dogbarking, human coughs, calls for help, fire alarms, carbon monoxidealarms, machines making improper noises (e.g., due to a defect,incident, or worn part), the sound of someone falling to the floor, pestnoises (e.g., mice, bees) in a wall of the environment, a car collision,baby or child crying, glass breaking, doorbells, or any otherdistinguishable sound that may indicate something occurring within themonitored environment, other than a normal ambient sound situation, thatis of importance for performing a responsive actions.

Moreover, the corpus may comprise configuration information for theparticular monitored environment in which the smart speaker system ordevice is present. For example, the corpus may comprise configurationinformation indicating the type of the monitored environment, e.g., ahome residence, office, school, commercial property, etc. whichindicates a potential subset of audio samples that may be associatedwith that monitored environment. The configuration information maycomprise a listing of the contents of the monitored environment, e.g., atelevision, refrigerator, dishwasher, vacuum cleaner, computer, stereo,telephone, washing machine and dryer, glass windows, doors, securityalarms, fire alarms, carbon monoxide sensors, etc. In some cases,information about the user and/or other occupants of the monitoredenvironment may also be registered in the configuration informationincluding gender, age, and the like. Any configuration information thatmay be used to select subsets of audio sample information from thelarger superset of generalized audio samples may be included withoutdeparting from the spirit and scope of the present invention. Thisallows for a multi-tiered matching or evaluation of captured audiosamples by first looking to the subsets for matches and if no match isfound then expanding the search to the larger superset of generalizedaudio samples, e.g., if the smart speaker system knows that an elderlyperson lives in the monitored environment, a subset of audio samplesassociated with elderly persons may be first searched to determine ifthere is a sufficient match and if not, then a search of a largersuperset of generalized audio samples may be performed.

The corpus may also comprise specific sound patterns for the specificmonitored environment. For example, during a training phase ofoperation, the audio capture devices of the smart speaker system may beused to capture audio samples over a training period of time from thespecific monitored environment. These captured audio samples may beanalyzed to extract audio features of the captured audio samples and maybe presented to the user of the smart speaker system for classification,such as by recording the captured audio samples and replaying them tothe user who may then answer questions that the smart speaker systempresents to the user and captures the user's response via naturallanguage processing.

For example, assume that during a training period, the audio capturedevices capture the sound of an icemaker in a freezer dropping ice intothe receptacle. The audio capture device may capture the audio sampleand analyze it to extract representative audio features. The audiosample may be stored for later playback to the user when the user agreesto assist with training. The smart speaker system, via the smart speakerdevice, may playback the audio sample followed by a set of inquiries,such as “What is this sound?”, “What is the source of this sound?”, orthe like. In response to each of these inquiries, the audio capturedevice of the smart speaker device may capture the user's spokenresponse and may then perform natural language processing of the spokenresponse to obtain the identification of the type of sound, i.e. icedropping, and the type of sound source, i.e. freezer ice maker. Thisinformation may be stored, along with the extracted features and eventhe captured audio sample, in a monitored environment specific databaseor registry of sound samples specific to the monitored environment.

Similarly, the corpus or corpora may comprise personal information,audio sample information, and the like, that is specific to theparticular user associated with the smart speaker system. For example,the audio capture device of the smart speaker system may capture andstore an audio sample of the user's speaking of a code/token, such as aprime number or emergency word/phrase (e.g., as a user security signalor the like). The personal information provided in the corpus or corporamay also comprise information from other systems that the user mayutilize, such as a computerized personal calendar, electronic mailsystem, communication device contact information database, or the like.The information provided from these various systems may be utilized toperform cognitive analysis of captured audio samples to determinewhether events are occurring or have occurred, the risk or danger levelof the events, and perform responsive actions if needed.

The smart speaker system, or the corpus/corpora, may further includeknowledge, rules, or the like, defining events and responsive actionsthat the smart speaker system is to perform in response to such events.The knowledge or rules may specify sounds that occur relative to oneanother and which combined represent an event. The sounds may be definedas occurring in a sequence or a sequence may not be specified. That is,the event may be determined to have occurred or be occurring within orassociated with the monitored environment only if a sufficient number ofthe sounds are detected in the captured audio samples for a particularperiod of time, and a specified sequence of sounds is determined to bepresent, or regardless of the sequence. Responsive actions may bedependent on the particular event and risk/danger level of the event.For example, if the event is a break-in event indicating an intruder hasentered the monitored environment, the risk/danger level is consideredhigh and the responsive action may be to initiate an automated call tothe police or an emergency first responder communication system, e.g.,911 call. If the event is a series of coughs coming from a baby, theevent may be considered to be potential croup and the user may beinformed of this potential situation, such as via an audible message, anemail or other textual message with an attachment of the stored audiosample, or the like, so that the user may perform a follow-up on theevent detected by the smart speaker system. Moreover, such sounds ofcoughing or the like may be recorded, transmitted, and played back to amedical professional, e.g., physician, ER doctor, etc., for assistingthe medical professional in treating the patient. Various types ofresponsive actions may be defined for implementation by the smartspeaker system based on the particular corresponding event and may bestored in association with such knowledge or rules either in the smartspeaker system itself, or in the corpus/corpora accessed by the smartspeaker system.

One type of request processing pipeline with which the mechanisms of theillustrative embodiments may be utilized is a Question Answering (QA)pipeline. With such a QA pipeline, a user may provide an input question,such as via a spoken question that is captured by the audio capturedevices of the smart speaker system, which is then parsed and analyzedto determine what the question is asking, and then perform a search ofavailable information from one or more corpora to ascertain candidateresponses to the input question, rank them according to evidentialsupport, and then select a final response to be provided back to theuser. It should be appreciated that while the present invention mayinclude such a QA pipeline in the context of the cognitive system, theillustrative embodiments are not limited to such. Rather, the mechanismsof the illustrative embodiments may operate on requests that are notposed as “questions” but are formatted as requests for the cognitivesystem to perform cognitive operations on a specified set of input datausing the associated corpus or corpora and the specific configurationinformation used to configure the cognitive system. For example, ratherthan asking a natural language question of “What was that sound?”, thecognitive system may instead receive a request of “Identify that sound,”or the like. It should be appreciated that the mechanisms of the QAsystem pipeline may operate on requests in a similar manner to that ofinput natural language questions with minor modifications. In fact, insome cases, a request may be converted from a statement to a naturallanguage question for processing by the QA system pipelines if desiredfor the particular implementation. Moreover, the request or question maybe simply implied by the providing of input data for processing. Thus,for example, the input “question” may in fact be captured audiosample(s) that are provided to the pipeline for processing with theimplied request or question of classifying the sound(s) present in theaudio sample(s) and determining if an event has occurred requiring aresponsive action.

As the illustrative embodiments may employ a cognitive system pipelineto process input data and generate analysis results for identifyingvariable wake sounds, identify patterns of sounds, determine whetherevents are occurring or have occurred in association with a monitoredenvironment, and determining an initiating responsive actions, it isimportant to first have an understanding of how cognitive systemsoperate. It should be appreciated that the mechanisms described in FIGS.1-3 are only examples and are not intended to state or imply anylimitation with regard to the type of cognitive system mechanisms withwhich the illustrative embodiments are implemented. Many modificationsto the example cognitive system shown in FIGS. 1-3 may be implemented invarious embodiments of the present invention without departing from thespirit and scope of the present invention.

As an overview, a cognitive system is a specialized computer system, orset of computer systems, configured with hardware and/or software logic(in combination with hardware logic upon which the software executes) toemulate human cognitive functions. These cognitive systems applyhuman-like characteristics to conveying and manipulating ideas which,when combined with the inherent strengths of digital computing, cansolve problems with high accuracy and resilience on a large scale. Acognitive system performs one or more computer-implemented cognitiveoperations that approximate a human thought process as well as enablepeople and machines to interact in a more natural manner so as to extendand magnify human expertise and cognition. A cognitive system comprisesartificial intelligence logic, such as natural language processing (NLP)based logic, for example, and machine learning logic, which may beprovided as specialized hardware, software executed on hardware, or anycombination of specialized hardware and software executed on hardware.The logic of the cognitive system implements the cognitive operation(s),examples of which include, but are not limited to, question answering,identification of related concepts within different portions of contentin a corpus, intelligent search algorithms, such as Internet web pagesearches, for example, medical diagnostic and treatment recommendations,and other types of recommendation generation, e.g., items of interest toa particular user, potential new contact recommendations, or the like.In the context of the illustrative embodiments set forth herein, thelogic of the cognitive system implements cognitive operations forautonomously recognizing different types of sounds as wake sounds,analyzing various sounds to categorize them, determine patterns ofsounds, cognitively analyze such patterns to identify events occurringwithin a monitored environment, and automatically cognitively determineappropriate feedback or responsive actions to be performed in responseto identification of such events.

IBM Watson™ is an example of a cognitive system which may be modifiedand augmented to perform the cognitive operations of the illustrativeembodiments. The IBM Watson™ cognitive system can process human readablelanguage and identify inferences between text passages with human-likehigh accuracy at speeds far faster than human beings and on a largerscale. In general, such cognitive systems are able to perform thefollowing functions:

-   -   Navigate the complexities of human language and understanding    -   Ingest and process vast amounts of structured and unstructured        data    -   Generate and evaluate hypothesis    -   Weigh and evaluate responses that are based only on relevant        evidence    -   Provide situation-specific advice, insights, and guidance    -   Improve knowledge and learn with each iteration and interaction        through machine learning processes    -   Enable decision making at the point of impact (contextual        guidance)    -   Scale in proportion to the task    -   Extend and magnify human expertise and cognition    -   Identify resonating, human-like attributes and traits from        natural language    -   Deduce various language specific or agnostic attributes from        natural language    -   High degree of relevant recollection from data points (images,        text, voice) (memorization and recall)    -   Predict and sense with situational awareness that mimic human        cognition based on experiences    -   Answer questions based on natural language and specific evidence        In one aspect, cognitive systems provide mechanisms for        answering questions posed to these cognitive systems, or        processing and responding to requests input to these cognitive        systems, using a request processing pipeline to process requests        which may or may not be posed as natural language questions or        may be provided simply as input data for processing.

In accordance with the illustrative embodiments, the request processingpipeline is an artificial intelligence application executing on dataprocessing hardware that processes input data, which may be capturedaudio data from a smart speaker device, for example, which may beprovided itself or in combination with a natural language question posedby a user to the smart speaker device. The request processing pipelinereceives inputs from various sources including input from other dataprocessing systems over a network, one or more corpora of electronicdocuments, information from audio (sound) sample archives, knowledgeinformation sources, or other data. Data storage devices or systemsstore the corpora of data and may be accessible via the data network(s).The data in the corpora may include any file, electronic textualdocument, article, or source of data for use in the cognitive system. Inparticular with the illustrative embodiments, the corpora includes oneor more audio (sound) sample archives having sound pattern information,sound features, sound types, and sound source type information.Moreover, the corpora may include user specific information, monitoredenvironment specific information, and other knowledge sources thatprovide information or data that may be utilized by the cognitive systemto perform cognitive operations in accordance with one or more of theillustrative embodiments, as touched upon above and described in greaterdetail hereafter.

The request processing pipeline receives an input question or request,parses the question/request to extract the major features, uses theextracted features to formulate queries, and then applies those queriesto the corpus of data. Based on the application of the queries to thecorpus of data, the request processing pipeline generates a set ofhypotheses, or candidate responses to the input question/request, bylooking across the corpus of data for portions of the corpus of datathat have some potential for containing a valuable response to the inputquestion/request. The request processing pipeline then performs deepanalysis on the content, features, and the like, of the inputquestion/request, e.g., sound patterns and/or audio features extractedfrom one or more captured audio sample(s), as well as the content,features, and the like, used in each of the portions of the corpus ofdata found during the application of the queries using a variety ofreasoning algorithms. There may be hundreds or even thousands ofreasoning algorithms applied, each of which performs different analysis,e.g., comparisons, calculations and analysis, and the like, andgenerates a confidence score indicating a confidence in the candidateresponse being a correct response for the input question/request. Forexample, some reasoning algorithms may look at the matching of terms andsynonyms within the language of the input question and the foundportions of the corpus of data. Other reasoning algorithms may compareextracted features of captured audio samples with features of storedaudio samples to determine degrees of matching and correspondingclassifications of types of sounds and/or types of sound sourcesassociated with captured audio samples. Other reasoning algorithms maylook at temporal or spatial features associated with captured audiosamples and calendar information for a particular user, or schedules ofambient sounds, while others may evaluate rules, patterns, or sequencesassociated with defined events and identify responsive actions to beperformed.

The scores obtained from the various reasoning algorithms indicate theextent to which the potential response is inferred by the inputquestion/request based on the specific area of focus of that reasoningalgorithm. Each resulting score is then weighted against a statisticalmodel. The statistical model captures how well the reasoning algorithmperformed at establishing the inference between the inputquestion/request and the candidate answer/response. The statisticalmodel is used to summarize a level of confidence that the requestprocessing pipeline has regarding the evidence that the potentialresponse, i.e. candidate answer/response, is inferred by thequestion/request. This process is repeated for each of the candidateanswers/responses until the request processing pipeline identifiescandidate answers/responses that surface as being significantly strongerthan others and thus, generates a final answer/response, or ranked setof answers/responses, for the input question/request.

FIG. 1 depicts a schematic diagram of one illustrative embodiment of acognitive system 100 implementing a request processing pipeline 108,which in some embodiments may be a question answering (QA) pipeline, ina computer network 102. For purposes of the present description, it willbe assumed that the request processing pipeline 108 is implemented as aQA pipeline that operates on structured and/or unstructured requests inthe form of input questions or input data in which questions areimplied, e.g., an input audio sample may be considered to have animplied question of “What is this sound and where is it from?” as wellas “Has an event occurred within the monitored environment?” One exampleof a question processing operation which may be used in conjunction withthe principles described herein is described in U.S. Patent ApplicationPublication No. 2011/0125734, which is herein incorporated by referencein its entirety. The cognitive system 100 is implemented on one or morecomputing devices 104A-D (comprising one or more processors and one ormore memories, and potentially any other computing device elementsgenerally known in the art including buses, storage devices,communication interfaces, and the like) connected to the computernetwork 102.

For purposes of illustration only, FIG. 1 depicts the cognitive system100 being implemented on computing device 104A only, but as noted abovethe cognitive system 100 may be distributed across multiple computingdevices, such as a plurality of computing devices 104A-D. The network102 includes multiple computing devices 104A-D, which may operate asserver computing devices, and 110-112 which may operate as clientcomputing devices, in communication with each other and with otherdevices or components via one or more wired and/or wireless datacommunication links, where each communication link comprises one or moreof wires, routers, switches, transmitters, receivers, or the like. Insome illustrative embodiments, the cognitive system 100 and network 102enables question processing and answer generation (QA) functionality forone or more cognitive system users via their respective computingdevices 110-112. In other embodiments, the cognitive system 100 andnetwork 102 may provide other types of cognitive operations including,but not limited to, request processing and cognitive response generationwhich may take many different forms depending upon the desiredimplementation, e.g., cognitive information retrieval,training/instruction of users, cognitive evaluation of data, or thelike. Other embodiments of the cognitive system 100 may be used withcomponents, systems, sub-systems, and/or devices other than those thatare depicted herein.

The cognitive system 100 is configured to implement a request processingpipeline 108 that receive inputs from various sources. The requests maybe posed in the form of a natural language question, natural languagerequest for information, natural language request for the performance ofa cognitive operation, input data (such as audio sample data or thelike), etc. For example, the cognitive system 100 receives input fromthe network 102, a corpus or corpora of electronic documents 106,cognitive system users, and/or other data and other possible sources ofinput. In one embodiment, some or all of the inputs to the cognitivesystem 100 are routed through the network 102. The various computingdevices 104A-D on the network 102 include access points for contentcreators and cognitive system users. Some of the computing devices104A-D include devices for a database storing the corpus or corpora ofdata 106 (which is shown as a separate entity in FIG. 1 for illustrativepurposes only). Portions of the corpus or corpora of data 106 may alsobe provided on one or more other network attached storage devices, inone or more databases, or other computing devices not explicitly shownin FIG. 1. The network 102 includes local network connections and remoteconnections in various embodiments, such that the cognitive system 100may operate in environments of any size, including local and global,e.g., the Internet.

In one embodiment, the content creator creates content in a document ofthe corpus or corpora of data 106 for use as part of a corpus of datawith the cognitive system 100. The document includes any file, text,article, or source of data for use in the cognitive system 100.Cognitive system users access the cognitive system 100 via a networkconnection or an Internet connection to the network 102, and inputquestions/requests to the cognitive system 100 that areanswered/processed based on the content in the corpus or corpora of data106. In one embodiment, the questions/requests are formed using naturallanguage and are associated with input data that is to be processed inaccordance with those questions/requests or are applied to alreadycollected data. However in other embodiments, the “questions” or“requests” are represented by the input data itself, with the questionsor requests being implied in the fact that input data is received. Thecognitive system 100 parses and interprets the input question/requestand/or input data via a pipeline 108, and provides a response containingone or more answers to the question posed, response to the request,results of processing the request and input data, or the like. In someembodiments, the cognitive system 100 provides a response to users in aranked list of candidate answers/responses while in other illustrativeembodiments, the cognitive system 100 provides a single finalanswer/response or a combination of a final answer/response and rankedlisting of other candidate answers/responses. In some illustrativeembodiments, the final answer/response is in the form of the performanceof a responsive action which may include, for example, localaudible/visual message/request output actions, remote communicationactions, and local device control actions.

The cognitive system 100 implements the pipeline 108 which comprises aplurality of stages for processing an input question/request based oninformation obtained from the corpus or corpora of data 106. Thepipeline 108 generates answers/responses for the input question orrequest based on the processing of the input question/request and thecorpus or corpora of data 106. The pipeline 108 will be described ingreater detail hereafter with regard to FIG. 3.

In some illustrative embodiments, the cognitive system 100 may be theIBM Watson™ cognitive system available from International BusinessMachines Corporation of Armonk, N.Y., which is augmented with themechanisms of the illustrative embodiments described hereafter. Asoutlined previously, a pipeline of the IBM Watson™ cognitive systemreceives an input question or request which it then parses to extractthe major features of the question/request, which in turn are then usedto formulate queries that are applied to the corpus or corpora of data106. Based on the application of the queries to the corpus or corpora ofdata 106, a set of hypotheses, or candidate answers/responses to theinput question/request, are generated by looking across the corpus orcorpora of data 106 for portions of the corpus or corpora of data 106(hereafter referred to simply as the corpus 106) that have somepotential for containing a valuable response to the inputquestion/response (hereafter assumed to be an input question). Thepipeline 108 of the IBM Watson™ cognitive system then performs deepanalysis on the language of the input question and the language used ineach of the portions of the corpus 106 found during the application ofthe queries using a variety of reasoning algorithms.

The scores obtained from the various reasoning algorithms are thenweighted against a statistical model that summarizes a level ofconfidence that the pipeline 108 of the IBM Watson™ cognitive system100, in this example, has regarding the evidence that the potentialcandidate answer/response is inferred by the question/request. Thisprocess is to be repeated for each of the candidate answers/responses togenerate ranked listing of candidate answers/responses which may then bepresented to the user that submitted the input question, e.g., a user ofclient computing device 110, or from which a final answer is selectedand presented to the user. More information about the pipeline 108 ofthe IBM Watson™ cognitive system 100 may be obtained, for example, fromthe IBM Corporation website, IBM Redbooks, and the like. For example,information about the pipeline of the IBM Watson cognitive system can befound in Yuan et al., “Watson and Healthcare,” IBM developerWorks, 2011and “The Era of Cognitive Systems: An Inside Look at IBM Watson and Howit Works” by Rob High, IBM Redbooks, 2012.

In the context of the present invention, cognitive system 100 may bespecifically configured to provide a cognitive functionality foridentifying and classifying variable wake sounds detected by one or moreaudio capture devices of a smart speaker device. The cognitive system100 is further specifically configured to classify the detected soundsin captured audio data as to their type and the type of sound sourcesmaking the detected sounds. The cognitive system 100 may further analyzecombinations of identified sounds and other non-audio sample basedinformation in a cognitive manner to determine whether events haveoccurred within, or in association with, a monitored environment, a riskor danger level of any such events, and any responsive actions to beperformed in response to the detected event and its corresponding riskor danger level. Moreover, the cognitive system 100 may trigger orinitiate the performance of any such responsive actions by way of anassociated smart speaker device associated with the monitoredenvironment. The cognitive system 100 may be part of the smart speakersystem 120 or may operate in conjunction with a smart speaker system120.

The smart speaker system 120 is shown as a separate entity from thesmart speaker device 140, which is present in the monitored environment150, and is shown as being provided by a single server computing device140 that is specifically configured to implement the cognitive system100 and smart speaker system 120. However, the present invention is notlimited to such a configuration. To the contrary, the smart speakersystem 120 may be integrated into the smart speaker device 140 in someembodiments. In other embodiments, the smart speaker system 120 may bedistributed across a plurality of server computing devices 104A-104D,such as in a cloud computing system or the like. Various components122-129 of the smart speaker system 120 may be provided on differentcomputing devices.

As shown in FIG. 1, the smart speaker system 120 comprises an audiosample analysis and classification engine 122, an event identificationengine 124, a responsive action performance engine 126, a sound andevent model repository 128, and a configuration information andknowledge base interface 129. The smart speaker system 120 operates inconjunction with one or more smart speaker devices 140 in the same ordifferent monitored environments 150. The smart speaker devices 140 eachcomprise one or more audio capture devices 142, such as microphones, andone or more audio output devices 144, such as speakers. The smartspeaker device 140 may further comprise local processing capability toperform some initial processing of captured audio samples to render themas data, perform some local evaluation of audio samples with regard tothe audio sample pattern and feature analysis, outputting data as audiooutput and processing audible responses, and also process data forperforming local control of enabled wireless devices.

While FIG. 1 shows the audio capture device(s) 142 being integrated withthe smart speaker device 140, in some illustrative embodiments, adistributed array of audio capture devices, within or associated with amonitored environment, that are in multiple smart speaker devices orotherwise provided and able to communicate with the smart speaker device140. In some embodiments, the audio capture devices may be part of asmart speaker device 140 that is mobile within the monitored environment150, such as part of a robotic chassis whose movement is eitherautomatically guided through the monitored environment or controlledremotely by a human operator. The audio capture devices 142 operate tocapture audio data, e.g., data representing the waveform of soundcaptured from the monitored environment 150. The audio data (audiosample) may then be locally stored, such as in a buffer of the smartspeaker device 140, and/or remotely stored and analyzed to identify thesounds present in the audio data. For example, the analysis of the audiodata may comprise first determining, such as at a local level, whetherthe captured audio data represents one or more sounds that may besignificant for additional analysis, i.e. sounds that are distinct fromlearned ambient sounds of the monitored environment and which pass aninitial set of criteria, which may be user configurable, indicating aneed for further analysis.

That is, the audio capture device(s) 142 of the smart speaker device 140captures audio samples from the monitored environment 150 and maylocally identify the audio samples as wake sounds. For example, as notedabove, the smart speaker device 140 or system 120 may recognize anysound that is significantly different from ambient sounds learned to bepresent at particular times of day for the particular monitoredenvironment in which the smart speaker system's audio receivers arepresent. As noted above, the logic of the smart speaker device 140,and/or the smart speaker system 120, may be trained over a trainingperiod of time to recognize ambient sounds for particular times of day.For example, over the course of one or more days of operation, the smartspeaker device 140 may capture audio samples and their correspondingtimestamps, extract features of these audio samples, and present theaudio samples for user feedback to indicate the type of sound, the typeof sound source from which the sound was generated, and may evenclassify the sound as am ambient or non-ambient sound, i.e. a normallyoccurring sound for the monitored environment for the specified time ofthe day. Based on the storage of such audio samples and theircorresponding timestamps, captured audio samples may be compared tothese ambient sound samples to determine if the audio sample is likelyan ambient sound or a wake sound.

The ambient sound sample information may be stored locally in a storagedevice of the smart speaker device 140 or remotely, such as in the soundand event model repository 128 in association with an identifier of themonitored environment 150. In addition, the smart speaker device 140 mayaccess information specific to the monitored environment 150 and/or theuser of smart speaker device 140 to determine calendar informationindicative of particular types of occurrences within the monitoredenvironment 150, e.g., regular events occurring within the monitoredenvironment 150 which are considered ambient events, holidays and otherregular occurrences where certain types of sounds are determined to beambient, e.g., large bang sounds are more prevalent on July 4^(th) andDecember 31^(st) than on other days of the year.

This information may be processed in the smart speaker system 120 and/orat a local level in the smart speaker device 140 which may have somelogic for making initial determinations as to whether a sound is avariable wake sound or an ambient sound. For ambient sounds, the smartspeaker device 140 may discontinue further processing of the audiosample as it is determined to be an ambient sound and not requiring moreadvanced analysis. For wake sounds, further processing may be initiatedto identify and classify the wake sound and perform additional cognitiveoperations.

With the mechanisms of the illustrative embodiments, the wake sounds arevariable and do not require a fixed key word or phrase to be spoken toinitiate processing of subsequent audio samples. Any sound that isdetermined to not be an ambient sound may be a wake sound which is thensubmitted to cognitive processing for identification and classificationand evaluation of events and responsive actions. These variable wakesounds may take many different forms depending on the particularimplementation and may include, for example, sounds of a dog barking,loud noises, coughs, calls for help, fire alarms, carbon monoxidealarms, machines making improper noises (e.g., due to a defect,incident, or worn part), the speaking of a code/token such as a primenumber or emergency word/phrase (e.g., as a user security signal or thelike), whistling, the sound of someone falling to the floor, pest noises(e.g., mice, bees) in a wall of the environment, a car accident, baby orchild crying, glass breaking, doorbells, or any other distinguishablesound that may indicate something occurring within the monitoredenvironment, other than a normal ambient sound situation, that is ofimportance for performing a responsive action. A registry or database ofsound patterns, sound features, or the like, and their correspondingsound types and source types may be provided for use in classifyingdetected sounds into a corresponding type of sound from a particulartype of sound source. In FIG. 1, this registry, archive, or database isreferred to as the sound and event model repository 128 where thecombination of sound patterns, sound features, sound types, sound sourcetypes, and other characteristic information about identifiable soundsare referred to as a sound model. The event models are representationsof the correlations of identified sounds, sequences of sounds, or otherpatterns of identified sounds indicative of events occurring within amonitored environment, for use in determining whether a correspondingevent is or has occurred within the monitored environment, e.g., anevent model may indicate that a glass breakage sound, followed by acrunching glass sound, followed by a moving of furniture or a sound ofsearching through drawers or the like, is indicative of a break-in eventwhich has a corresponding risk or danger level of high.

Assuming a capture audio sample (or audio data) comprises a wake sound,a more cognitive and detailed analysis of the audio sample is performedby the audio sample analysis and classification engine 122 of the smartspeaker system 120. That is, in one illustrative embodiment, the smartspeaker device 140 performs an initial analysis to determine if thecaptured audio sample represents something that is not an ambient sound.In response to determining that the sound(s) in the captured audiosample are not ambient sounds, the capture audio sample may be sent tothe cognitive system 100 which operates in conjunction with the smartspeaker system 120 to perform cognitive analysis of the captured audiosample via the request processing pipeline 108. The audio sampleanalysis and classification engine 122 comprises a plurality ofdifferent algorithms and logic for analyzing the captured audio samplewith regard to a variety of different audio characteristics and may beutilized in one or more stages of the pipeline 108 to parse and extractfeatures of the capture audio sample, analyze them, and generatehypotheses as to the type of sound(s) and type of sound sources that arerepresented in the captured audio sample, which are then evaluated basedon evidential information to rank the hypotheses and generate a finalresult indicating the determined type of sound(s) and their sourcespresent in the captured audio sample. This process may involve matchingwith stored sound models present in the sound and event model repository128 and may further involve evaluation of configuration information forthe particular monitored environment 150, the user of the smart speakerdevice 140, calendar information, and other information in variousknowledge bases.

For example, such analysis may comprise performing pattern analysis,feature extraction (e.g., amplitude, frequency, duration, etc.), and thelike. The patterns and/or features may be used as a basis for comparingthe audio sample, with sound models stored in the sound and event modelrepository 128 to thereby indicate a nature or type of the sound(s) inthe audio sample and/or the nature or type of the sound sourcesgenerating the sound(s) in the audio sample. Pattern analysis may beapplied to compare the audio sample waveform patterns to the storedsound models to determine a degree of matching of the captured audiosample to the stored sound models in the repository 128. Similarly,feature comparisons may be used to determine a degree of matchingbetween features of the captured audio samples with stored sound modelsin the repository 128. In this way, the identification or classificationof sounds in a captured audio sample may be generated with regard tostored sound models that have a highest degree of matching or confidencein the matching.

The particular type of analysis performed on the captured audio samplemay take many different forms depending on the particular implementationand will typically include a joint analysis of multiple differentcharacteristics of the captured audio sample to perform a cognitiveidentification and classification of the sound(s) in the audio sample,e.g., by matching to a stored sound model, evaluation of whether thesound(s) either by themselves or in combination with historical capturedsound information for a specified time period, constitute an event,determining a danger or risk level of the event, and determining andinitiating a responsive action to the event. In some implementations,the audio capture device(s) 142 of the smart speaker device(s) 140 areable to triangulate or otherwise identify the location within themonitored environment from which the sound is sampled and may trackmovement of sound sources within the monitored environment, e.g.,tracking amplitude and timing of received audio data from one or moreaudio capture devices indicating movement towards or away from therespective audio capture devices. Such location and/or movementdetection may be based on sound amplitudes received at various audiocapture devices positioned in different positions of the monitoredenvironment, e.g., the same sound received at different audio capturedevices with different amplitudes indicates the source being closer toaudio capture devices where the amplitude is relatively greater andfurther away from audio capture devices with the amplitude is relativelylower.

The location and/or movement information may be used to assist withcognitive analysis of the audio data to identify the classification oridentification of the sound, e.g., knowing a relative location of thesmart speaker device 140 to other portions of the monitored environment,the smart speaker device 140 may identify portions of the monitoredenvironment 150 from which sounds are being detected and the potentialsources of such sounds in those locations to thereby identify a subsetof potential sound samples that the captured sound may match, e.g.,knowing that the sound source is located in a kitchen of the monitoredenvironment 150, sound models associated with kitchen related soundsources may be searched primarily, or weighted more highly, than othersound models associated with other portions of the monitoredenvironment. Such location information for the stored sound models maybe stored in those sound models in addition to the other informationpreviously described above, such that sound models may be grouped orclassified by location. This allows for ease of search based on locationand/or weighting of sound models for matching purposes.

In some illustrative embodiments, natural language processing of spokenwords may be performed by converting the spoken words represented in thecaptured audio data to a textual representation and performing naturallanguage processing o the textual representation. The natural languageprocessing may operate to attempt to determine what is being said todetermine how to respond to the spoken words. Such natural languageprocessing is generally known in the art.

In some embodiments, the analysis of the captured audio sample mayutilize both natural language processing and audio characteristicanalysis to perform sentiment analysis. That is, sentiment analysis maybe performed on captured audio data to determine moods, intents, or thelike, of the sources of the captured audio sample. For example, thenatural language content of the audio data may be analyzed to identifyparticular terms and phrases indicative of moods, intents, and the like.Moreover, various audio characteristics, or features, may be evaluatedfor sentiment such as rising pitch, sharp increases in amplitude of thecaptured audio, audio data patterns indicative of crying, moaning,screaming, and the like, etc. This sentiment analysis may be combinedwith other types of analysis, such as identification of sound type,sound source type, location, and the like, in a joint analysis directedto identifying events occurring within or in association with amonitored environment. For example, if the smart speaker device 140captures audio samples indicative of a rising pitch, terms generallyassociated with anger or frustration, and breaking glass, an event maybe triggered indicating a domestic disturbance and appropriate actionmay be taken, such as asking a user if they need assistance,automatically initiating a call to a first responder contact number,recording the audio occurring in the monitored environment 150 forevidential purposes at a later time by authorities, or the like.

In some embodiments, a history of captured audio data, and the soundidentification results associated with the captured audio data, e.g.,the identification of the type of sound and the type of sound source ofthe sound, may be stored for use in cognitively evaluating the patternof different identified sounds to determine whether an event isoccurring within the monitored environment that would trigger aresponsive action, or reaction, by the smart speaker system 120, e.g.,the outputting of an audible message, the outputting of an audiblerequest or question to a user, the triggering of a display ofinformation, the triggering of a visual indicator, such as a light onthe smart speaker device, the initiating of a communication (automatedtelephone call, electronic mail message, instant text message, or thelike) to another device via a wired or wireless connection, or the like.The history may be stored in a local buffer memory of the smart speakerdevice 140 or other temporary storage of the smart speaker system 120(not shown) in association with an identifier of the smart speakerdevice 140, or the like. The history preferably is configured to storecaptured audio samples and the corresponding identification of soundspresent in the audio samples as determined from the smart speaker system120, i.e. a tag or identifier of the matching sound models in the soundand event model repository 128 for a predetermined time window, orperiod of time, consistent with an amount of time required to identifyevents occurring within or in association with the monitoredenvironment. The period of time may be a configuration parameter whichmay be stored in the configuration information and knowledge baseinterface 129.

The information stored in the buffer or temporary storage may be used bythe event identification engine 124 as a basis for determining whetheran event has occurred within or in association with the monitoredenvironment 150. This may be done on a continuous basis as audioinformation is added to the buffer or temporary storage, such as in thecase of a moving time window, or may be done on a periodic basis, suchas at the elapse of each period of time for which the buffer ortemporary storage is used to store captured audio sample and soundidentification information (collectively referred to as soundinformation).

This evaluation by the event identification engine 124 may involveapplying event models from the sound and event model repository 128 tothe stored sound information in the buffer or temporary storage todetermine if criteria of the event model are satisfied to a thresholdlevel of certainty to indicate that the corresponding event hasoccurred. That is, the cognitive analysis of the identified sound(s) inthe captured audio samples over the specified time window may involveutilizing stored or learned knowledge about events and the types ofsounds associated with such events which are represented as event modelsin the sound and event model repository 128. This stored or learnedknowledge may be provided in the event models as machine executablerules stored in the sound and event model repository 128 of the smartspeaker system 120, in the local smart speaker device 140 itself, or acombination. The machine executable rules may be stored as template datastructures, where each template data structure may represent a differenttype of event and may comprise one or more rules for matching as well asadditional information for evaluating the event when it is matched,e.g., a default risk or danger level, an identification of a responsiveaction to take, etc.

The stored and learned knowledge represented in the rules or templatesof the event models may specify one or more sounds indicative of anevent. The event model may further specify timing constraints,sequences, particular combinations of sounds, particular locations ofsounds, or the like, that are indicative of the event. The soundinformation stored in the buffer or temporary storage may be compared tosuch criteria and a degree of matching of the sound information storedin the buffer or temporary storage to the event model may be determinedand this degree of matching may be compared to a predetermined thresholdrequirement for determining that the event model has been matched. Ifthe event model has been matched, then the event is determined to haveoccurred in association with the monitored environment 150.

In determining whether an event is occurring within or in associationwith the monitored environment 150, the degree of matching of the soundsfound in the captured audio samples to the criteria specified in theserules/templates may be calculated to determine a risk or danger level ofthe perceived event associated with the monitored environment 150. Forexample, the risk or danger level may be a combination of a basic ordefault risk or danger level associated with the event defined by therule/template, weighted by the degree of matching of the sounds, orpatterns of sounds, identified in the captured audio for the specifiedtime window. For example, a template may have one or more rulesspecifying criteria for an event of a “break-in” at the monitoredenvironment 150. The rules may specify the sounds as including glassbreakage, security alarm sounds, crunching glass, footsteps, shufflingof contents of a room, etc. Based on how many of these sounds areidentified in the captured audio data during the specified time window,a degree of matching may be calculated and used to weight the basic ordefault risk/danger level of the event, e.g., the default risk/dangerlevel may be considered high, but if the number of matching sounds islow, then the risk/danger level may be reduced accordingly.Alternatively, the degree of matching may simply be used as a measure ofconfidence that the event is actually occurring or has occurred inassociation with the monitored environment 150 and if the confidence issufficiently high, e.g., equal to or greater than a predeterminedthreshold, which may be user configurable, then the event specified inthe rules/template is considered to be a match and the correspondingrisk/danger level for that event is utilized.

Assuming an event model is matched by the sound information stored inthe buffer or temporary storage, the responsive action performanceengine 126 may evaluate the event to determine an appropriate responsiveaction to be performed, if any, and may initiate performance of thatresponsive action. The particular responsive action may be dependentupon the type of the matching event and its determined danger or risklevel, as well as any specific responsive actions that may be specifiedin the matched event model, if any. The determined danger or risk levelmay be determined by the responsive action performance engine 126 basedon the danger/risk level associated with the identified event, such asby using a specified default danger/risk level, possibly weighting thedefault danger/risk level by a degree of matching with the event modelcriteria, as described above, and evaluation of other relevant factorsincluding time of day (break-ins at night or when residents tend to behome are relatively higher danger/risk level than other times of theday), user preferences or configuration information for such eventsindicating user determined danger or risk levels for the particularevent (e.g., one user may desire to rank dog barking sounds asrelatively higher danger/risk level than another user), and otherinformation present in the configuration information and from otherknowledge bases. The danger or risk level along with the event type maybe correlated with a responsive action which is then initiated. Thisresponsive action may be a responsive action specifically associatedwith the event in the event model itself, may be a responsive actionperformed in addition to any specific responsive action indicated in theevent model, or may be a selection of one of a plurality of possibleresponsive actions set forth in the event mode based on the determinedlevel of danger or risk associated with the event.

The responsive actions may take many different forms depending on theparticular type of event. However, these responsive actions maygenerally be categorized into local audible/visual message/requestoutput actions, remote communication actions, and local device controlactions. Of course, a combination of such actions may also be utilized.These responsive actions may make use of the audio output device(s) 144of the smart speaker device 140, may make use of control capabilities ofthe smart speaker device 140 to control other devices within orassociated with the monitored environment 150, such as via a wirelessnetwork and home automation products, e.g., controllable lights, doorlocks, appliances, and the like.

As mentioned previously, examples of local audible/visualmessage/request output actions include, but are not limited to,outputting a natural language message in an audible format indicatingthe nature of a detected event, outputting a natural language request inan audible format indicating a nature of the detected event andrequesting instructions from a user (followed by appropriate actionbased on the user response), illuminating or otherwise controlling theturning on/off of a visual indicator as well as controllingcharacteristics of the visual indicator, e.g., color, textual messagedisplayed, blinking, rate of blinking, or other visual characteristics,and the like. Examples of remote communication actions include, but arenot limited to, initiating an automated telephone call to a user'sregistered telephone number, initiating a call to a security companymanaging the security of the monitored environment, initiating a call toemergency services personnel, sending an electronic mail message to auser associated with the smart speaker system indicating the detectedevent with/without attachment of audio data for playback, sending aninstant message to a registered device associated with a user, or thelike. Examples of local device control actions include, but are notlimited to, turning on/off lights, activating/deactivating securityalarms, locking/unlocking doors, turning on/off video feeds fromsecurity video cameras, controlling the viewing position of suchsecurity video cameras, e.g., by controlling a motor in the video camerato pan the camera to focus on a location where the smart speaker systemdetermines the source of a detected sound may be present, playing musicor other audio, or the like.

The responsive action performance engine 126 of the smart speaker system120 composes the corresponding responsive actions and causes theresponsive actions to be performed via the smart speaker device 140.This may involve accessing registered contact information for the user,such as may be stored in configuration information or a user profiledata structure of the configuration information and knowledge baseinterface 129, to obtain information for sending communications and whatthose communications should contain. This may further involve accessingother knowledge bases, via the configuration information and knowledgebase interface 129, located remotely to obtain information needed toformulate the content and/or control information for composing and/ordirecting the responsive actions, e.g., unique identifiers of devices tobe controlled, identifiers of on-line retailers from whichproducts/services may be obtained, contact information for firstresponders or emergency services in the geographic area of the monitoredenvironment 150, and the like.

Thus, based on the type of event, source of the sounds identified in thecaptured audio data, and the risk/danger level associated with theevent, one or more corresponding responsive actions are identified bythe smart speaker system 120 implemented in, or in association with, thecognitive system 100. The logic of the smart speaker system 120 mayinteract with or be integrated with various stages of the pipeline 108of the cognitive system 100 to achieve this functionality. For example,the audio sample analysis and classification engine 122 may operate inconjunction with, or even may be implemented as, the pipeline 108 incognitive system 100 as the functionality of the engine 122 involves aninput parsing, analysis, and decomposition stage of the pipeline 108 aswell as hypothesis generation, evidence scoring, synthesis, and finalresult generation to identify sounds in a received audio sample from thesmart speaker device 140. Similarly, the event identification engine 124may be integrated in, or work in conjunction with, one or more stages ofthe pipeline 108 to identify events as described above. In someembodiments, the event identification engine 124 may also be implementedas a pipeline 108 entirely and this pipeline may be separate from thatof a pipeline used to identify individual sounds in an audio sample,e.g., a first pipeline for identifying sounds in a captured audio sampleand a second pipeline for identifying events based on the sounds incaptured audio samples and stored in the buffer or temporary storage.

In the above example embodiment, the time window for which soundinformation is stored in the buffer or temporary storage is described asa relatively short time window and associated with a time perioddetermined to be sufficient to identify events occurring within orassociated with the monitored environment. However, in some illustrativeembodiments, the history of captured sounds may be maintained in thesmart speaker system 120 in a more permanent fashion for use in laterplayback operations, such as in a history data structure (not shown)associated with the particular monitored environment 150 or smartspeaker device 140. For example, the buffered audio data andcorresponding sound identifications may be moved from the buffer memoryor temporary storage to a more permanent memory, e.g., a hard diskstorage system, remote storage system, or the like, for later retrievaland playback when desired. Moreover, such a stored historical playbackmay be made accessible to a user via another remotely located computingdevice, e.g., a user may be notified, via an electronic communication(e.g., email, instant message, or the like) sent to their computingdevice 112, mobile computing device 160, or the like, of an eventoccurring and be given a link or other selectable mechanism by which toaccess the stored audio data and sound identification information fromthe permanent storage of the smart speaker system 120.

It should be appreciated that in some illustrative embodiments, thesound and event model repository 128 may store models applicable tomultiple different smart speaker devices in multiple different monitoredenvironments. Moreover, the sound and event model repository 128 maylearn and store models obtained from a variety of different monitoredenvironments. For example, based on user feedback indicating the typeand/or source of a sound, the user specified classification of the soundand sound source may be stored in association with the captured audiodata in the repository 128 to thereby dynamically modify and improve therepository 128 by including additional models indicative of a particulartype of sound or sound source. A similar operation can be performed forevent models as well. Furthermore, such operations may be performedautomatically by the system in response to a smart speaker devicecapturing audio data determined to be abnormal to assist in detectingnormal versus abnormal sounds in other monitored environments. Thus, acollective learning of types of sounds and types of sound sources, aswell as events, may be achieved using a plurality of different smartspeaker devices in a plurality of different monitored environments.

As touched upon above, the operation of the smart speaker system 120 andthe smart speaker device is user configurable in many different ways sothat the user can identify the types of events for which the smartspeaker is to monitor the environment, the level of confidence and/ordanger/risk level required for different types of responsive actions tobe performed, the types of responsive actions to be performed inresponse to particular types of events, schedules of when certain typesof events are to be monitored for, schedules of when the smart speakersystem is to disable monitoring, such as for privacy or securityreasons, and the like. For example, a user may make use of the computingdevice 112, a mobile computing device 160, or any other data processingdevice or system to access the smart speaker system 120 and configurethe user configurable parameters and provide configuration for storagein the configuration information and knowledge base interface 129. Theuser may make use of an application running on such a data processingdevice/system to access the smart speaker system 120 and configure itfor use with the user's own smart speaker device 140 and for themonitored environment 150.

Thus, the illustrative embodiments provide mechanisms for implementing asmart speaker system with variable wake sound identification andclassification. The illustrative embodiments further provide such asmart speaker system with cognitive analysis capability to identifysounds in captured audio samples and determine events associated withsuch identified sounds. Moreover, the illustrative embodiments providemechanisms in the smart speaker system to evaluate such identifiedevents and determine and initiate any appropriate responsive actionsbased on the type of event, its corresponding danger/risk level, and thelike.

The following are examples of various types of operations andfunctionality that the mechanisms of the illustrative embodiments mayperform based on the architecture described above. As noted above, thesmart speaker system 120, utilizing the smart speaker device 140 inassociation with the monitored environment 150, may perform a jointanalysis of a sound identified in a captured audio sample by identifyingwho is speaking the sound (or identifying the source of sound), acognitive aspect of the sound (e.g., stress of the user), and themovement of the speaker (person) within the monitored environment 150while he/she is speaking the sound (e.g., a user asks a question whilemoving from point A to point B in a home, as determined byposition-detecting mechanisms associated with the smart speaker device140). Through analysis of the wake-sound and speaker identity, the smartspeaker system 120 may be trained using historical data, and if desiredincorporating mechanical turks, to recognize sounds associated with auser's confusion, inquisitiveness, or general need for information,e.g., sentiment analysis as previously described above. In this way, thesmart speaker system 120 may become more proactive in waking up,analyzing a buffered text of inquiry, and offering to help answer theimplied question or clarify the perceived confusion. For example,natural language processing (NLP) mechanisms may be utilized to create aclassification model for a specified cognitive state of sounds forbetter understanding of the sound, or other utterances associated withthe sound and the environment. This classification model may map theanalyzed sounds and/or utterances to relevant categories wherein eachcategory, or class, may represent a state of confusion, inquisitiveness,or the like.

For example, consider the following example exchange between a user andthe smart speaker (SS) device 140 in the monitored environment 150:

-   -   User: “I cannot understand why I can't find AAA batteries! I        know I just had some last week!” [pitch rising; sentiment is        confused and irritated]    -   SS: “Hello are you looking for something you can't find?”    -   User: “Yes.”    -   SS: “Perhaps I can help. Are you looking for AAA batteries?”    -   User: “Yes.”    -   SS: “OK. May I order some for you? They will arrive tomorrow.”        In this exchange, the audio characteristics of the user's        initial statement, as well as the terms used in the user's        statement, indicate that the user is looking for something, the        thing the user is looking for is AAA batteries, and the audio        characteristics of the captured audio sample indicate a rising        pitch which is indicative of confusion or irritation. From this        information, the smart speaker system (SS) determines the event        as being that the user is looking for something with the rising        pitch being indicative of a higher level of risk/danger (or one        could consider this to be a level of importance in responding).        As a result, a responsive action of responding with an output        message is performed to inquire as to whether the user needs        help, with follow on dialogue to achieve a desired level of        assistance for the user.

In one illustrative embodiment, an action template, which may be storedlocally or on cloud based database, may be used to perform theresponsive action. In such an embodiment, the smart speaker systemfurther selects and prioritizes responsive actions using custom definedmachine learning algorithms. For example, given an action space A, and astate space (situation) S, a machine learning algorithm, such as aneural network or the like, may be used to estimate the confidence inthe responsive action(s) to be taken for the computed risk or dangerlevel. By way of an example, neural networks can be used to estimateparameters in order to choose a label (action). In this case, multiplelabels (multi-class) can be estimated with confidence. If a set ofactions are above a threshold, they are triggered for the responsiveaction. Consider the following example of triggering a responsive actionset: {Contact an emergency service, Contact a first responder, Place aphone call to a certain entity}: Given a state space S={Detected dangerwake sound is high, confidence: 0.8, estimated confused state of sound:0.75, probability of estimated sound reputation: 0.9, Computed riskScore R: High}.

In some embodiments, the smart speaker system 120 stores sounds (e.g.possibly dangerous sounds) for playback to the user upon a request beingreceived from a user via their computing device 112 or mobile device160, or through spoken requests to the smart speaker device 140. In somecases, the smart speaker device 140 may detect through cognitiveanalysis, the return of the user to the monitored environment 150, suchas when the user returns home for the day, and may automaticallyinitiate a dialogue with the user to determine if the user wishes tohear a log of the events detected and corresponding audio samples for aspecified time period, e.g., since the user was last in the monitoredenvironment 150, for the last day, etc.

In some embodiments, rather than waiting for a user request or detectionof the user's return to the monitored environment 150, the smart speakersystem 120, such as in cases of high risk or danger, may automaticallyinitiate a communication with the user, via their computing device 112or mobile device 160, to playback stored audio samples or otherwiseindicate events detected by the smart speaker system 120, e.g., sendingan email or instant text message with audio attachment, initiating anautomated phone call, or the like. For example, the smart speaker system120 may send/post the sound or the analysis of the sound on the user's“effective” communication channel, e.g., Twitter™, Whatsapp™, email,etc. based on a determination or learning of what channel the user oftenuses in a particular context, e.g., time of day, location, etc.

As mentioned above, in some illustrative embodiments, the smart speakersystem 120 learns, through a training period, the patterns of soundsencountered daily (e.g., sounds of trash collectors, cars passing by,dogs barking, music playing, etc.) and listens for changes to the soundpatterns. In addition, such training may continue after the trainingperiod through the user of user feedback and machine learning where thesmart speaker system 120 may provide an indication of an event to a userand receive user feedback indicating whether or not that event and itsassociated sounds, or the sounds themselves, are ambient sounds orregular sounds for that time of day. This allows the smart speakersystem 120 to become accustomed to certain routine sounds in themonitored environment 150.

In some illustrative embodiments, the smart speaker system, withpermission, may communicate with an analysis module on a separate cloudserver, e.g., server 104D in FIG. 1, regarding what a sound is, to helpidentify it. In some cases, the smart speaker system may make use ofMechanical Turks, i.e. a crowdsourcing repository of human intelligenceto assist with performing tasks, to help determine one or morecharacteristics or identities of the sound(s) in a captured audiosample. For example, in cases where the smart speaker system 120 isunable to identify a matching sound model for a sound in a capturedaudio sample to a sufficient degree of certainty, the smart speakersystem 120 may send the audio sample to a cloud computing MechanicalTurks systems, obtain user feedback identifying the sound type, the typeof sound source, and other characteristics of the sound, which may thenbe used to generate a sound model for addition to the sound and eventmodel repository 128.

It should be appreciated that while the above illustrative embodimentsassume that audio samples captured by the smart speaker device 140 arethose that are within the human perceivable range of sound frequencies,the present invention is not limited to such. Rather, in someillustrative embodiments, the smart speaker device 140 may be sensitiveto sounds beyond the normal hearing range (e.g., less than 20 Hz or morethan 20 kHz) for providing danger alerts and other purposes. As such,the smart speaker system 120 may be configured to analyze, identify, andclassify such sounds and perform event identification and responsiveaction determinations in a manner similar to that described above, butwith sounds outside normal human hearing range. The smart speaker device140, as part of a responsive action, may also be configured to emit suchsounds outside the normal human hearing range, e.g., in response to anevent that captured sounds indicate pests or other vermin present withinthe monitored environment, the smart speaker device 140 may emit soundsto repel pests and vermin.

In some illustrative embodiments, the smart speaker system 120 mayrecord anomalous sounds/noise, or noises that it has been programmed torecord, and may perform responsive actions to try to mitigate suchnoises, e.g., turn off a water faucet or heater in response to adetermination that water is running as determined from the soundidentification, classification, and event identification, in response tosounds recognized to be a broken water pipe, or potentially from afrozen water pipe (as may be determined by utilizing other sources ofinformation in combination with the audio sample, such as regionaltemperature and weather forecast data from corresponding sources, or thelike). The smart speaker system 120 also may replay the noises (storedaudio samples) and describe the context related to the noises and theaction(s) that the smart speaker system 120 took in the determined orderor sequence.

In some embodiments, the smart speaker device 140 may be mobile andmounted on a robotic chassis or other automated or human controlledmobile platform. As a result, the movable smart speaker device 140 iscapable of moving around within the monitored environment 150 or betweenmultiple monitored environments and may capture audio samples from anymonitored environments 150 in which it operates. Moreover, locationdetermination algorithms as discussed above may be used to both identifythe location of the smart speaker device 140 within the monitoredenvironments 150, as well as the sources of sounds detected by the smartspeaker device 140 relative to the smart speaker device 140.

In some illustrative embodiments, the smart speaker device 140 andsystem 120 may operate retroactively to respond to user inquiries aboutsounds occurring within a monitored environment 150. For example, thesmart speaker device 140 may receive a user input of the type, “SmartSpeaker, what was that?” In such a scenario, the user is requesting thatthe smart speaker device 140 identify a sound that was heard by a human,using its cognitive capabilities and a search for the recorded audiosample in its buffer. This may be useful in situations of homesecurity/health tasks by analyzing audio recorded in a buffer, for userinitiated identification of anomalous/dangerous sounds, and even callingfor help if the sound is deemed dangerous. The following is an examplescenario of an exchange between a user, who is a parent of a smallchild, and the smart speaker system that is facilitated by themechanisms of the illustrative embodiments:

-   -   Parent wakes up to a sound of coughing.    -   Parent: “Smart Speaker, what was THAT?”    -   SS: “Just a second as I check my recording database . . . . This        is the sound of a child suffering from croup. Would you like to        know more about symptoms and treatment?”    -   Parent getting out of bed: “Yes.”    -   SS: “Croup, also known as laryngotracheobronchitis, is a type of        respiratory infection that is usually caused by a virus. The        infection leads to swelling inside the trachea, which interferes        with normal breathing and produces the classic symptoms of        “barking” cough, stridor, and a hoarse voice. Fever and runny        nose may also be present. These symptoms may be mild, moderate,        or severe. Often it starts or is worse at night. It normally        lasts one to two days. Do you want me to call for medical        assistance?”    -   Parent: “No that's not necessary.”

In some illustrative embodiments, the smart speaker device 140 maymonitor for “differences” in the surrounding sound, e.g., ambient soundin a particular room, relative to the same monitored environment 150 ata similar time of day in the past. Thus, for example, it may bedetermined that certain sounds detected in the monitored environment 150are atypical for the monitored environment 150 in general, atypical forthe monitored environment 150 for the particular time of day, and mayutilize this information when evaluating whether an event has occurredand/or the danger/risk level of any identified events.

In some illustrative embodiments, the sentiment analytics may be used todetermine the sentiments of persons speaking, as well as the sentimentsof other persons in the group. The smart speaker system 120 may alsooptionally analyze certain aspects of the sounds of pets, includingsounds of agitation, e.g., barking, intensity of barking, whimpering, orthe like, for example, so as to estimate (with some confidence level)that an alert may be warranted as to potential emergency situation atthe monitored environment, the need for the pet to be walked or letoutside (some pet owners train their pets to utilize a bell or otherdevice for indicating their need to go outside and such sounds could bedetected with the smart speaker system of the present invention), or thelike. As noted above, in some illustrative embodiments, a responsiveaction may be to control local mechanisms that are controllable by thesmart speaker system. In some cases, if the smart speaker systemdetermines that the pet is needing to go outside, the smart speakersystem may automatically operate a motorized pet door to allow the petaccess to the outside.

In some cases, the identification of a sound and its significance may bedifficult or prone to at least some degree of error. In such cases, auser may wish to establish risk levels of missing some sounds. Forexample, a user my want the smart speaker system 120 to “err” on theside of sending or causing an alert to be generated in response to anelderly parent having made a sound indicative of falling on the floor,since accommodating some false alarms is less dangerous than missing anactual case of falling. Additionally, the smart speaker system 120 maytake input from other sensors, detectors, computing systems, or thelike, which may assist in identifying events occurring within themonitored environment 150, such as a fall of an elderly person or thelike. For example, the smart speaker system 120 may incorporate a motiondetector, camera of other image capture device, that provides input tohelp increase the confidence of detecting a fall of the elderly occupantof the monitored environment. The configuration information and otherinformation from other sensors, detectors, and the like, may be storedin the configuration information and knowledge base interface 129, forexample. If the confidence level exceeds a threshold, the smart speakersystem 120 may initiate an responsive action, such as placing a phonecall to a certain entity, contacting a first responder, contacting anemergency service, or the like.

As noted above, the smart speaker system may be trained to listen forcertain sounds, and it may learn through positive reinforcement and userfeedback. A user may also configure the smart speaker system 120 as towhat sounds the user wants the smart speaker system 120 to be alert forand what sounds to ignore. For example, the user may specify that thesmart speaker system 120 should listen for coughing, falling, or soundsof distress by an elderly occupant of the monitored environment 150, butignore dog barking sounds or other pet related sounds as the occupantdoes not currently have a pet.

In some illustrative embodiments, the smart speaker system 120 may betrained regarding a privacy concern of the user or group (e.g., familymember discussions) by analyzing the user cultural/social context (e.g.,in some social/cultural groups people tend to speak loudly), bydetermining the user personality type based on sound (e.g., using IBM'sPersonality Insight™ cloud service), measuring the user historical tonein speaking (e.g., using IBM's Tone Analyzer™ cloud service), etc. Forexample, in some cultures, tone and personality type of a person can beinformative of a privacy type and level of the person. If desired by theparticular implementation of the illustrative embodiments, the smartspeaker system 120 may be configured with a privacy firewall that candisregard storing sounds if they are deemed to be a privacy concern. Insome cases, if a privacy concern is determined to be present, the smartspeaker system 120 or smart speaker device 140 may automaticallydiscontinue operation until a time when the privacy concern hasdissipated. For example, the smart speaker system/device 120, 140 may beconfigured to switch itself off (e.g., not to collect audio samples)based on user specified rules and context (e.g., certain periods of theday).

In one illustrative embodiment, a graphical user interface (GUI) may beprovided to allow a user to specify privacy concerns. Thereafter, apolicy-translator module may translate the user-specification providedvia the GUI into privacy filtering policies and rules. For eachtranslated policy or rule, the policy-translator module may furthercompute the degree of negativity and assign a weight to the policy orrule. In this way, the system may detect, in real-time, privacyconcerns.

In another illustrative embodiment, privacy concerns may be learned fromhistorical data. For example, a privacy module may learn a user'sconcerns (or generally disagreeable characteristics) by analyzing theuser cultural/social group/network (e.g., Facebook™, Twitter™, chatting,etc.) and analyzing historical user posts/tweets. This analysis mayfurther include other analyses performed by other systems, such as userpersonality type determinations, such as by using IBM's PersonalityInsight™ cloud service or the like, measuring the user historicalprivacy concerns, etc.

The privacy concerns can also be location dependent. For example, basedon a predicted event or activity, appropriate or specialized firewallfilters policies and rules can be deployed, so as to decrease thelikelihood of inappropriate and not useful information being captured bythe smart speaker system.

It should be noted that in some implementations, the monitoredenvironment 150 itself may be mobile and is not limited to buildings orother fixed physical premises. For example, the monitored environment150 may be a vehicle, such as the cabin of the vehicle or other portionof the vehicle where human occupants may be present. In suchembodiments, the smart speaker device 140 and smart speaker system 120may be used to identify squeaking noises inside an acoustic signalgenerated during the operation of the vehicle or one of its thecomponents, in the physical premises of a fixed monitored environment,or the like. The acoustic signal may be detected by the smart speakerdevice 140 and an amplitude spectrum of the acoustic signal may bedetermined through analysis by the smart speaker system 120 to representthe amplitude distribution in a frequency range across at least two timemoments, and the presence of a squeaking noise may be identified byevaluating the at least two amplitude spectra. This information may beused to identify a faulty piece of machinery or equipment in themonitored environment 150.

Also in the vehicle context, the smart speaker device 140 and smartspeaker system 120 may be used to record sounds after a collision/crashof the vehicle is detected by the smart speaker device 140. For example,the loud noise of a collision/crash may be used as a basis for detectinga collision/crash event which triggers the smart speaker device to startrecording subsequent audio occurring for a predetermined period of timeand to remotely store any audio still present in the buffers ortemporary storage of the smart speaker device 140 and/or smart speakersystem 120 to a more permanent storage location of the smart speakersystem 120. Thus, all of the corresponding sounds, includingconversations between vehicle occupants, both before and after thecollision may be recorded for later playback. This may be useful to helpreconstruct the cause(s) leading up the collision and the eventsoccurring thereafter, as well as recording an admission of fault

There are a plethora of other scenarios and use cases in which themechanisms of the illustrative embodiments may be implemented, any ofwhich are intended to be within the spirit and scope of the presentinvention.

As noted above, the mechanisms of the illustrative embodiments arerooted in the computer technology arts and are implemented using logicpresent in such computing or data processing systems. These computing ordata processing systems are specifically configured, either throughhardware, software, or a combination of hardware and software, toimplement the various operations described above. As such, FIG. 2 isprovided as an example of one type of data processing system in whichaspects of the present invention may be implemented. Many other types ofdata processing systems may be likewise configured to specificallyimplement the mechanisms of the illustrative embodiments.

FIG. 2 is a block diagram of an example data processing system in whichaspects of the illustrative embodiments are implemented. Data processingsystem 200 is an example of a computer, such as server 104A or client110 in FIG. 1, or even smart speaker device 140, in which computerusable code or instructions implementing the processes for illustrativeembodiments of the present invention are located. In one illustrativeembodiment, FIG. 2 represents a server computing device, such as aserver 104A, which implements a cognitive system 100 and requestpipeline 108 augmented to operate with or implement the additionalmechanisms of the illustrative embodiments described herein, i.e. thesmart speaker system 120, for example.

In the depicted example, data processing system 200 employs a hubarchitecture including north bridge and memory controller hub (NB/MCH)202 and south bridge and input/output (I/O) controller hub (SB/ICH) 204.Processing unit 206, main memory 208, and graphics processor 210 areconnected to NB/MCH 202. Graphics processor 210 is connected to NB/MCH202 through an accelerated graphics port (AGP).

In the depicted example, local area network (LAN) adapter 212 connectsto SB/ICH 204. Audio adapter 216, keyboard and mouse adapter 220, modem222, read only memory (ROM) 224, hard disk drive (HDD) 226, CD-ROM drive230, universal serial bus (USB) ports and other communication ports 232,and PCI/PCIe devices 234 connect to SB/ICH 204 through bus 238 and bus240. PCI/PCIe devices may include, for example, Ethernet adapters,add-in cards, and PC cards for notebook computers. PCI uses a card buscontroller, while PCIe does not. ROM 224 may be, for example, a flashbasic input/output system (BIOS).

HDD 226 and CD-ROM drive 230 connect to SB/ICH 204 through bus 240. HDD226 and CD-ROM drive 230 may use, for example, an integrated driveelectronics (IDE) or serial advanced technology attachment (SATA)interface. Super I/O (SIO) device 236 is connected to SB/ICH 204.

An operating system runs on processing unit 206. The operating systemcoordinates and provides control of various components within the dataprocessing system 200 in FIG. 2. As a client, the operating system is acommercially available operating system such as Microsoft® Windows 8°.An object-oriented programming system, such as the Java™ programmingsystem, may run in conjunction with the operating system and providescalls to the operating system from Java™ programs or applicationsexecuting on data processing system 200.

As a server, data processing system 200 may be, for example, an IBM®eServer™ System p computer system, running the Advanced InteractiveExecutive (AIX®) operating system or the LINUX® operating system. Dataprocessing system 200 may be a symmetric multiprocessor (SMP) systemincluding a plurality of processors in processing unit 206.Alternatively, a single processor system may be employed.

Instructions for the operating system, the object-oriented programmingsystem, and applications or programs are located on storage devices,such as HDD 226, and are loaded into main memory 208 for execution byprocessing unit 206. The processes for illustrative embodiments of thepresent invention are performed by processing unit 206 using computerusable program code, which is located in a memory such as, for example,main memory 208, ROM 224, or in one or more peripheral devices 226 and230, for example.

A bus system, such as bus 238 or bus 240 as shown in FIG. 2, iscomprised of one or more buses. Of course, the bus system may beimplemented using any type of communication fabric or architecture thatprovides for a transfer of data between different components or devicesattached to the fabric or architecture. A communication unit, such asmodem 222 or network adapter 212 of FIG. 2, includes one or more devicesused to transmit and receive data. A memory may be, for example, mainmemory 208, ROM 224, or a cache such as found in NB/MCH 202 in FIG. 2.

Those of ordinary skill in the art will appreciate that the hardwaredepicted in FIGS. 1 and 2 may vary depending on the implementation.Other internal hardware or peripheral devices, such as flash memory,equivalent non-volatile memory, or optical disk drives and the like, maybe used in addition to or in place of the hardware depicted in FIGS. 1and 2. Also, the processes of the illustrative embodiments may beapplied to a multiprocessor data processing system, other than the SMPsystem mentioned previously, without departing from the spirit and scopeof the present invention.

Moreover, the data processing system 200 may take the form of any of anumber of different data processing systems including client computingdevices, server computing devices, a tablet computer, laptop computer,telephone or other communication device, a personal digital assistant(PDA), or the like. In some illustrative examples, data processingsystem 200 may be a portable computing device that is configured withflash memory to provide non-volatile memory for storing operating systemfiles and/or user-generated data, for example. Essentially, dataprocessing system 200 may be any known or later developed dataprocessing system without architectural limitation.

FIG. 3 illustrates an example of a cognitive system request processingpipeline used to process an input request or input of captured audiosample data in accordance with one illustrative embodiment. FIG. 3 isprovided only as one example of the processing structure that may beimplemented to process an input that either explicitly or implicitlyrequests the operation of a cognitive system to present a response orresult to the input request. In particular, with the illustrativeembodiments, the request is an implicit request to identify the type ofsound(s) in the input captured audio sample data, identify a type ofsource of the sound(s), determine if an event is occurring or hasoccurred in the monitored environment, and determine and initiate aresponsive action, if any.

The request pipeline of FIG. 3 may be implemented, for example, as therequest processing pipeline 108 of cognitive system 100 in FIG. 1. Itshould be appreciated that the stages of the request processing pipelineshown in FIG. 3 are implemented as one or more software engines,components, or the like, which are configured with logic forimplementing the functionality attributed to the particular stage. Eachstage is implemented using one or more of such software engines,components or the like. The software engines, components, etc. areexecuted on one or more processors of one or more data processingsystems or devices and utilize or operate on data stored in one or moredata storage devices, memories, or the like, on one or more of the dataprocessing systems. The request processing pipeline of FIG. 3 isaugmented, for example, in one or more of the stages to implement theimproved mechanism of the illustrative embodiments described hereafter,additional stages may be provided to implement the improved mechanism,or separate logic from the pipeline 300 may be provided for interfacingwith the pipeline 300 and implementing the improved functionality andoperations of the illustrative embodiments.

As shown in FIG. 3, the request processing pipeline 300 comprises aplurality of stages 310-380 through which the cognitive system operatesto analyze an input and generate a final response. In an initial inputstage 310, the request processing pipeline 300 receives an input requestor input data, e.g., an input of captured audio sample data inaccordance with the illustrative embodiments, for processing. That is,the smart speaker device captures an audio sample and transmits theaudio sample as a data transmission to the cognitive system foranalysis. The input data of the captured audio sample is provided to theinput stage 310 of the request processing pipeline 300.

In response to receiving the input data, the next stage of the requestprocessing pipeline 300, i.e. the data parsing and analysis stage 320,parses the input data, if necessary converts any detected speech to textand performs natural language processing (NLP) techniques to extractmajor natural language features from the text, performs audiocharacteristic analysis to extract major audio features, and classifiesthose major features according to types. The analysis of the audiosample data may take many different forms as previously discussed aboveto extract features representative of particular sounds present in themonitored environment including sound intensity analysis, locationanalysis, natural language content analysis to determine the content ofthe spoken statements or questions, sentiment analysis, tonal analysis,etc.

Referring again to FIG. 3, the identified major features are then usedduring the decomposition stage 330 to decompose the major features intocharacteristics of the audio sample data indicative of particularsounds. One or more queries are applied to the corpora ofdata/information 345 in order to generate one or more hypotheses. Thecorpora may comprise configuration information, knowledge bases, soundmodels, event models, and the like, as previously discussed above. As aresult, the various information for evaluating the major features of thecaptured audio sample data is collected and sound models are applied todetermine degrees of matching between the sound models and the majorfeatures of the audio sample data.

The queries are applied to the corpus of information at the hypothesisgeneration stage 340 to generate results identifying potentialhypotheses, e.g., potential matches of sound models to the soundspresent in the audio sample data, which can then be evaluated. That is,the application of the queries results in the extraction of portions ofthe corpus of information, e.g., sound models, matching the criteria ofthe particular query. These portions of the corpus are then analyzed andused, during the hypothesis generation stage 340, to generate hypothesesof results of processing the input audio sample data. At this stage 340,there may be hundreds of hypotheses generated that may need to beevaluated.

As noted above, in some illustrative embodiments, a filtering orselection of a subset of sound models and/or other information in thecorpora 345 may be performed prior to performing the matching operation.For example, as part of the decomposition stage 330, or the hypothesisgeneration stage 340, a determination of a subset of sound modelsapplicable to the captured audio sample data may be made based on themajor features and other context information about the captured audiosample data. For example, if the audio sample originated from aresidence and from a kitchen of the residences, a first subset of soundmodels associated with sound sources in a kitchen of a residence mayfirst be utilized for generating hypotheses. If a sound model thatmatches the audio sample data is not found with a sufficient level ofconfidence, then another superset of sound models may be investigated,e.g., sound models associated with a residence and not specificallylimited to kitchen sound sources, may be utilized to attempt to find amatch. Any number of levels of hierarchy of sound model classificationsmay be used to perform hypothesis generation with the preference beingto search for matches in a lower level classification first withsubsequent searches being done a broader and higher levels only ifnecessary to obtain a desired level of confidence in a match.

The request processing pipeline 300, in stage 350, then performs a deepanalysis and comparison of any natural language of the input audiosample data, audio characteristics, and other major features andinformation associated with the audio sample data and with the criteriaof each hypothesis, as well as performs evidence scoring to evaluate thelikelihood that the particular hypothesis is a correct classification ofthe sound(s) in the audio sample data. As mentioned above, this involvesusing a plurality of reasoning algorithms, each performing a separatetype of analysis of the language of the input audio sample data and/orcontent of the corpus that provides evidence in support of, or not insupport of, the hypothesis. Each reasoning algorithm generates a scorebased on the analysis it performs which indicates a measure of relevanceof the individual portions of the corpus of data/information extractedby application of the queries as well as a measure of the correctness ofthe corresponding hypothesis, i.e. a measure of confidence in thehypothesis. There are various ways of generating such scores dependingupon the particular analysis being performed. In general, however, thesealgorithms look for particular terms, phrases, characteristics, patternsor the like, that are indicative of a particular type of sound anddetermine a degree of matching with higher degrees of matching beinggiven relatively higher scores than lower degrees of matching.

In the synthesis stage 360, the large number of scores generated by thevarious reasoning algorithms are synthesized into confidence scores orconfidence measures for the various hypotheses. This process involvesapplying weights to the various scores, where the weights have beendetermined through training of the statistical model employed by therequest processing pipeline 300 and/or dynamically updated. For example,the weights for scores generated by algorithms that identify exactlymatching sound models may be set relatively higher than other algorithmsthat are evaluating time of day ambient sound changes. The weightsthemselves may be specified by subject matter experts or learned throughmachine learning processes that evaluate the significance ofcharacteristics of audio sample data and their relative importance tooverall hypothesis generation. The weighted scores are processed inaccordance with a statistical model generated through training of therequest processing pipeline 300 that identifies a manner by which thesescores may be combined to generate a confidence score or measure for theindividual hypotheses.

The resulting confidence scores or measures are processed by a finalconfidence merging and ranking stage 370 which compares the confidencescores and measures to each other, compares them against predeterminedthresholds, or performs any other analysis on the confidence scores todetermine which hypotheses are the most likely to be the correct. Thehypotheses are ranked according to these comparisons to generate aranked listing of hypotheses. From the ranked listing of hypotheses, atstage 380, a final hypothesis, e.g., a final classification of thesound(s) in the input audio sample data, and confidence score, isgenerated and output.

As shown in FIG. 3, in accordance with one illustrative embodiment, theaspects of the smart speaker system 120 may be integrated in, or may beimplemented by, the request processing pipeline 300. For example,aspects of the smart speaker system 120 may be integrated into theparsing and analysis stage 320, the decomposition stage 330, hypothesisgeneration stage 340, hypothesis and evidence scoring stage 350, and thelike. It should also be appreciated that similar processing through thepipeline 300 may be performed for event identification as well, based oninput data representing a set of audio samples collected over apredetermined period of time, which may be a designated, or rolling,time window. In some cases, different pipelines 300 may be provided forseparately performing operations for identifying and classifying soundsin an input audio sample, and for identifying events based on acollection of sounds found in audio samples over a period of time. Thepipeline(s) 300 provide support for cognitively processing input audiosamples to identify sounds in the audio samples, identify eventsoccurring based on the identified sounds, and determining andimplementing responsive actions in response to such events, ifappropriate.

FIG. 4 is a flowchart outlining an example overall operation of a smartspeaker system for processing an audio sample captured by a smartspeaker device in accordance with one illustrative embodiment. As shownin FIG. 4, the operation starts with the audio capture device(s)associated with the smart speaker device detecting or capturing an audiosample from sounds occurring within or associated with the monitoredenvironment (step 410). It is important to note that these sounds do notrequire a wake word or phrase to be used to trigger the audio samplecapture, and in fact may not be natural language input at all, butrather may be any variable sound present in or associated with themonitored environment.

The audio sample is analyzed using an initial set of analysis algorithmsto determine if the sample is potentially a wake sound needing furtherdetailed analysis (step 420). For example, this operation may perform aninitial determination as to whether the audio sample is of a sound thatis not an ambient sound for the monitored environment for the particulartime of day and day of the week. This may be accomplished by performinganalysis of the audio sample to extract major features and compare themto sound models of ambient sounds for the monitored environment (thesemay be generalized and or environment specific sound models learned overtime and/or with user feedback or machine learning techniques). Adetermination, based on such analysis and comparison to ambient soundmodels, is then made as to whether the audio sample contains a wakesound requiring further detailed analysis (step 430). If the sound inthe audio sample is an ambient sound and not a wake sound, then nofurther processing is necessary and the operation terminates.

If the sound is a wake sound, a cognitive analysis of the audio sampleis performed using a cognitive system request processing pipeline isperformed to identify the type of sound and the type of sound source ofthe sound (step 440). The cognitive analysis may involve the processoutlined in FIG. 5, for example, for determining the identification ofthe sound in the audio sample.

Having identified the sound using the cognitive analysis of step 440,the operation then cognitively determines whether the identified soundindicates or triggers the identification of an event occurring or havingoccurred in association with the monitored environment (step 450). Thesound may itself, or in combination with other sounds over a period oftime, indicate such an event. The event identification may be performedin a manner such as outlined in FIG. 6 hereafter, for example.

A determination is made as to whether the results of the cognitiveevaluation of the sound for triggering an event identification resultsin an indication that an event has occurred (step 460). If not, thesound information is stored in a temporary storage for use inidentifying events associated with subsequent sounds that may becaptured within a specified time window (step 470). If the sound doestrigger identification of an event, a cognitive analysis is performed todetermine the danger/risk level of the event and a correspondingresponsive action to be performed (step 480). Performance of theresponsive action is then initiated (step 490) and the operationterminates.

FIG. 5 is a flowchart outlining an example operation for cognitivelyidentifying a sound in a captured audio sample in accordance with oneillustrative embodiment. As shown in FIG. 5, the operation starts withreceiving an audio sample for analysis (step 510). The audio sample isparsed and analyzed to extract major features of the audio sampleincluding natural language content if any, audio characteristics,sentiment analysis based features, location based features, and the like(step 520). Sound models corresponding to the monitored environment fromwhich the audio sample was acquired are retrieved (step 530). Asdiscussed above, this may involve a subset of sound models correspondingto the monitored environment and location within the monitoredenvironment from which the audio sample was acquired being identifiedand used in subsequent steps with this set of sound models beingexpanded in a hierarchical manner if a match is not identified.

The major features of the audio sample are compared to the retrievedsound models to identify a degree of matching with each of the soundmodels (step 540). A weighted confidence score may be generated based onthe degree of matching as well as consideration of other knowledge basefactors (step 550). For example, different weights may be applied tosound models based on whether they are general sound models or soundmodels specific to the monitored environment, e.g., learned over timefrom the monitored environment. A ranked listing of the matched soundmodels is generated and the confidence scores are compared to thresholdrequirements (step 560). A highest ranking sound model with thethreshold amount of confidence score is selected as a match to the soundin the audio sample (step 570). The operation then terminates.

FIG. 6 is a flowchart outlining an example operation for identifying theoccurrence of an event in a monitored environment and initiating aresponsive action in accordance with one illustrative embodiment. Asshown in FIG. 6, the operation starts with the identification of a soundfrom an audio sample captured from a monitored environment (step 610).Previously identified and processed sounds within a given time windoware identified along with the currently identified sound (step 620). Thecollection of sounds, their types, their sources, sequence of sounds,and various other audio and content characteristics of the sounds arecompared to event models defining criteria for different types of events(step 630). As discussed above, this may involve a subset of eventmodels corresponding to the monitored environment and location withinthe monitored environment from which the audio sample was acquired beingidentified and used in subsequent steps with this set of event modelsbeing expanded in a hierarchical manner if a match is not identified.

The configuration information and other knowledge base information thatmay be used to identify events and weighting the confidence scoresassociated with events occurring in the monitored environment may alsobe retrieved from corresponding stores (step 640). A weighted confidencescore may be generated based on the degree of matching of the variousfactors of the sounds, configuration information, and knowledge baseinformation (step 650). A ranked listing of the matched event models isgenerated and the confidence scores are compared to thresholdrequirements (step 660). A highest ranking event model with thethreshold amount of confidence score is selected as a match (step 670).The matching event model may specify a default danger/risk level for theevent and a suggested responsive action to be performed. Thisinformation may be utilized in steps 480 and 490 of FIG. 4 to determinedanger/risk level and a corresponding responsive action to be performed,for example. After identifying the matching event model, the operationoutlined in FIG. 5 terminates.

Thus, the illustrative embodiments provide mechanisms for enablingvariable wake sound identification and classification by a smart speakersystem. The smart speaker system is configured to identify any type ofsound that is indicative of a potential event requiring a responsiveaction occurring within or in association with a monitored environment.The smart speaker system provides cognitive analysis capabilities forcognitively determining the type of the sound, the type of the soundsource, whether an event is occurring or has occurred in the monitoredenvironment based on the identified sounds over a specified period oftime, and can identify and initiate responsive actions to such events.In this way, the smart speaker system is not tied to having to havepredefined fixed wake sounds and may be useful in performing responsiveactions to events occurring that are not limited to responding tonatural language inquiries.

As noted above, it should be appreciated that the illustrativeembodiments may take the form of an entirely hardware embodiment, anentirely software embodiment or an embodiment containing both hardwareand software elements. In one example embodiment, the mechanisms of theillustrative embodiments are implemented in software or program code,which includes but is not limited to firmware, resident software,microcode, etc.

A data processing system suitable for storing and/or executing programcode will include at least one processor coupled directly or indirectlyto memory elements through a communication bus, such as a system bus,for example. The memory elements can include local memory employedduring actual execution of the program code, bulk storage, and cachememories which provide temporary storage of at least some program codein order to reduce the number of times code must be retrieved from bulkstorage during execution. The memory may be of various types including,but not limited to, ROM, PROM, EPROM, EEPROM, DRAM, SRAM, Flash memory,solid state memory, and the like.

Input/output or I/O devices (including but not limited to keyboards,displays, pointing devices, etc.) can be coupled to the system eitherdirectly or through intervening wired or wireless I/O interfaces and/orcontrollers, or the like. I/O devices may take many different formsother than conventional keyboards, displays, pointing devices, and thelike, such as for example communication devices coupled through wired orwireless connections including, but not limited to, smart phones, tabletcomputers, touch screen devices, voice recognition devices, and thelike. Any known or later developed I/O device is intended to be withinthe scope of the illustrative embodiments.

Network adapters may also be coupled to the system to enable the dataprocessing system to become coupled to other data processing systems orremote printers or storage devices through intervening private or publicnetworks. Modems, cable modems and Ethernet cards are just a few of thecurrently available types of network adapters for wired communications.Wireless communication based network adapters may also be utilizedincluding, but not limited to, 802.11 a/b/g/n wireless communicationadapters, Bluetooth wireless adapters, and the like. Any known or laterdeveloped network adapters are intended to be within the spirit andscope of the present invention.

The description of the present invention has been presented for purposesof illustration and description, and is not intended to be exhaustive orlimited to the invention in the form disclosed. Many modifications andvariations will be apparent to those of ordinary skill in the artwithout departing from the scope and spirit of the describedembodiments. The embodiment was chosen and described in order to bestexplain the principles of the invention, the practical application, andto enable others of ordinary skill in the art to understand theinvention for various embodiments with various modifications as aresuited to the particular use contemplated. The terminology used hereinwas chosen to best explain the principles of the embodiments, thepractical application or technical improvement over technologies foundin the marketplace, or to enable others of ordinary skill in the art tounderstand the embodiments disclosed herein.

What is claimed is:
 1. A method, in a smart speaker device comprising anaudio capture device and an audio sample buffer, for processing audiosample data captured by the audio capture device, the method comprising:capturing, by the audio capture device, one or more audio samples from amonitored environment; storing, by the smart speaker device, thecaptured one or more audio samples in the audio sample buffer, whereinthe audio sample buffer stores an amount of captured audio samplescorresponding to a specified time window for detecting events occurringwithin the monitored environment; analyzing, by smart speaker devicelogic of the smart speaker device, the one or more captured audiosamples to determine whether the one or more captured audio samplesrepresent a potential wake sound for initiating a responsive action bythe smart speaker device, wherein the potential wake sound is a variablesound determined to not be a normal ambient sound of the monitoredenvironment; and in response to determining that the one or morecaptured audio samples represent a potential wake sound for initiating aresponsive action by the smart speaker device, initiating performance ofthe responsive action by the smart speaker device.
 2. The method ofclaim 1, wherein analyzing the one or more captured audio samplescomprises performing a joint analysis of a plurality of differentcharacteristics of the one or more captured audio samples and matchingresults of the joint analysis to criteria specified in a plurality ofstored sound models in a sound model repository storage associated withthe smart speaker device.
 3. The method of claim 1, wherein analyzingthe one or more captured audio samples to determine whether the one ormore captured audio samples represent a potential wake sound forinitiating a responsive action by the smart speaker device furthercomprises: transmitting the one or more captured audio samples to aremote smart speaker system service of a remotely located servercomputing device; comparing, by the smart speaker system service, soundpatterns of the one or more captured audio samples to stored soundpatterns associated with a plurality of sound models in a sound modelrepository associated with the smart speaker system service; and inresponse to identifying at least one stored sound pattern of at leastone sound model that matches one or more of the sound patterns of theone or more captured audio samples, returning sound type and soundsource type information from the at least one sound model correspondingto the at least one stored sound pattern.
 4. The method of claim 3,wherein determining whether the one or more captured audio samplesrepresent a potential wake sound for initiating a responsive action bythe smart speaker device, further comprises: applying, by at least oneof the smart speaker device or the smart speaker system service, one ormore event rules to the sound type and sound source type informationfrom the at least one sound model corresponding to the at least onestored sound pattern; determining, by at least one of the smart speakerdevice or the smart speaker system service, whether application of theone or more event rules indicates that an event has occurred in themonitored environment; and initiating, by at least one of the smartspeaker device or the smart speaker system service, performance of theresponsive action by the smart speaker device, in response todetermining that the event has occurred in the monitored event, whereinthe responsive action is specified by the one or more event rules. 5.The method of claim 1, wherein analyzing the one or more captured audiosamples to determine whether the one or more captured audio samplesrepresent a potential wake sound for initiating a responsive action bythe smart speaker device, comprises: determining at least one oflocation or movement information, in the monitored environment, of oneor more sources of the one or more captured audio samples; andcognitively classifying the one or more captured audio samples based onthe determined at least one of location or movement information of theone or more sources of the captured audio samples.
 6. The method ofclaim 1, wherein determining whether the one or more captured audiosamples represent a potential wake sound for initiating a responsiveaction by the smart speaker device comprises applying user specifiedconfiguration information to classification of the one or more capturedaudio samples, wherein the user specified configuration informationspecifies user specific types of sounds for which responsive actions areto be performed.
 7. The method of claim 1, wherein determining whetherthe one or more captured audio samples represent a potential wake soundfor initiating a responsive action by the smart speaker device, furthercomprises: learning, by the smart speaker device, privacy concerninformation of a user associated with the monitored environment; andapplying, by the smart speaker device, a privacy firewall based on theprivacy concern information of the user to the one or more capturedaudio samples to filter and disregard storing of captured audio samplesin the audio sample buffer that are determined to be private based onthe privacy concern information of the privacy firewall.
 8. The methodof claim 1, wherein the responsive action is at least one of outputtingof an audible message, outputting of an audible request or question to auser and listening for an audible response from a user which is thenprocessed by the smart speaker device, triggering of a display ofinformation on a display associated with the smart speaker device,triggering of a visual indicator on the smart speaker device,controlling an operation of another device to perform an operationwithin the monitored environment, or initiating a communication toanother device via a wired or wireless connection.
 9. The method ofclaim 8, wherein the responsive action is initiating the communicationto another device via a wired or wireless connection, and wherein thecommunication comprises an indication of an identified event that hasoccurred in the monitored environment, and a recording of the one ormore captured audio samples corresponding to the event for playback by adevice receiving the communication.
 10. The method of claim 1, whereindetermining whether the one or more captured audio samples represent apotential wake sound for initiating a responsive action by the smartspeaker device comprises: learning, by the smart speaker device, ambientsound patterns present in the monitored environment at various times ofa day; and determining whether or not a sound pattern in the one or morecaptured audio samples is different, by at least a threshold amount,from the ambient sound patterns learned to be present in the monitoredenvironment at the time of day that the one or more captured audiosamples were captured by the audio capture device.
 11. A computerprogram product comprising a computer readable storage medium having acomputer readable program stored therein, wherein the computer readableprogram, when executed in a smart speaker device, causes the smartspeaker device to: capture one or more audio samples from a monitoredenvironment; store the captured one or more audio samples in an audiosample buffer, wherein the audio sample buffer stores an amount ofcaptured audio samples corresponding to a specified time window fordetecting events occurring within the monitored environment; analyze theone or more captured audio samples to determine whether the one or morecaptured audio samples represent a potential wake sound for initiating aresponsive action by the smart speaker device, wherein the potentialwake sound is a variable sound determined to not be a normal ambientsound of the monitored environment; and in response to determining thatthe one or more captured audio samples represent a potential wake soundfor initiating a responsive action by the smart speaker device, initiateperformance of the responsive action by the smart speaker device. 12.The computer program product of claim 11, wherein analyzing the one ormore captured audio samples comprises performing a joint analysis of aplurality of different characteristics of the one or more captured audiosamples and matching results of the joint analysis to criteria specifiedin a plurality of stored sound models in a sound model repositorystorage associated with the smart speaker device.
 13. The computerprogram product of claim 11, wherein analyzing the one or more capturedaudio samples to determine whether the one or more captured audiosamples represent a potential wake sound for initiating a responsiveaction by the smart speaker device further comprises: transmitting theone or more captured audio samples to a remote smart speaker systemservice of a remotely located server computing device; comparing, by thesmart speaker system service, sound patterns of the one or more capturedaudio samples to stored sound patterns associated with a plurality ofsound models in a sound model repository associated with the smartspeaker system service; and in response to identifying at least onestored sound pattern of at least one sound model that matches one ormore of the sound patterns of the one or more captured audio samples,returning sound type and sound source type information from the at leastone sound model corresponding to the at least one stored sound pattern.14. The computer program product of claim 13, wherein determiningwhether the one or more captured audio samples represent a potentialwake sound for initiating a responsive action by the smart speakerdevice, further comprises: applying, by at least one of the smartspeaker device or the smart speaker system service, one or more eventrules to the sound type and sound source type information from the atleast one sound model corresponding to the at least one stored soundpattern; determining, by at least one of the smart speaker device or thesmart speaker system service, whether application of the one or moreevent rules indicates that an event has occurred in the monitoredenvironment; and initiating, by at least one of the smart speaker deviceor the smart speaker system service, performance of the responsiveaction by the smart speaker device, in response to determining that theevent has occurred in the monitored event, wherein the responsive actionis specified by the one or more event rules.
 15. The computer programproduct of claim 11, wherein analyzing the one or more captured audiosamples to determine whether the one or more captured audio samplesrepresent a potential wake sound for initiating a responsive action bythe smart speaker device, comprises: determining at least one oflocation or movement information, in the monitored environment, of oneor more sources of the one or more captured audio samples; andcognitively classifying the one or more captured audio samples based onthe determined at least one of location or movement information of theone or more sources of the captured audio samples.
 16. The computerprogram product of claim 11, wherein determining whether the one or morecaptured audio samples represent a potential wake sound for initiating aresponsive action by the smart speaker device comprises applying userspecified configuration information to classification of the one or morecaptured audio samples, wherein the user specified configurationinformation specifies user specific types of sounds for which responsiveactions are to be performed.
 17. The computer program product of claim11, wherein determining whether the one or more captured audio samplesrepresent a potential wake sound for initiating a responsive action bythe smart speaker device, further comprises: learning privacy concerninformation of a user associated with the monitored environment; andapplying a privacy firewall based on the privacy concern information ofthe user to the one or more captured audio samples to filter anddisregard storing of captured audio samples in the audio sample bufferthat are determined to be private based on the privacy concerninformation of the privacy firewall.
 18. The computer program product ofclaim 11, wherein the responsive action is at least one of outputting ofan audible message, outputting of an audible request or question to auser and listening for an audible response from a user which is thenprocessed by the smart speaker device, triggering of a display ofinformation on a display associated with the smart speaker device,triggering of a visual indicator on the smart speaker device,controlling an operation of another device to perform an operationwithin the monitored environment, or initiating a communication toanother device via a wired or wireless connection.
 19. The computerprogram product of claim 18, wherein the responsive action is initiatingthe communication to another device via a wired or wireless connection,and wherein the communication comprises an indication of an identifiedevent that has occurred in the monitored environment, and a recording ofthe one or more captured audio samples corresponding to the event forplayback by a device receiving the communication.
 20. The computerprogram product of claim 11, wherein determining whether the one or morecaptured audio samples represent a potential wake sound for initiating aresponsive action by the smart speaker device comprises: learningambient sound patterns present in the monitored environment at varioustimes of a day; and determining whether or not a sound pattern in theone or more captured audio samples is different, by at least a thresholdamount, from the ambient sound patterns learned to be present in themonitored environment at the time of day that the one or more capturedaudio samples were captured by the audio capture device.
 21. A smartspeaker device comprising: a processor; a memory coupled to theprocessor; an audio capture device coupled to the processor and thememory; and an audio sample buffer coupled to the audio capture device,wherein the memory comprises instructions which, when executed by theprocessor, cause the processor to: capture, via the audio capturedevice, one or more audio samples from a monitored environment; storethe captured one or more audio samples in the audio sample buffer,wherein the audio sample buffer stores an amount of captured audiosamples corresponding to a specified time window for detecting eventsoccurring within the monitored environment; analyze the one or morecaptured audio samples to determine whether the one or more capturedaudio samples represent a potential wake sound for initiating aresponsive action by the smart speaker device, wherein the potentialwake sound is a variable sound determined to not be a normal ambientsound of the monitored environment; and in response to determining thatthe one or more captured audio samples represent a potential wake soundfor initiating a responsive action by the smart speaker device, initiateperformance of the responsive action by the smart speaker device.